3 o 4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



once for the finishing. The woolen fabric comes from the loom 

 loose, open, rough, and must be thoroughly milled or fulled before 

 it is finished. 



The woolen cloth spun on the mule, and milled was, until 

 a few years back, the only wool fabric made for men's wear. 

 There are innumerable varieties of it, including broadcloths, 

 doeskins, twills, flannels, tricots, beavers, cassimeres, cheviots, 

 meltons trade-names which stand for certain standard fabrics, 

 with little regard for their etymological significance. Until the 

 year 1840 the wool manufacture of the United States was exclu- 

 sively confined to the woolen form. In that year the first delaines 

 made in this country were manufactured at a mill in Ballardvale, 

 Mass. All the wool was combed by hand, and the printing of the 

 goods was at first also by hand. The success of this experiment 

 started others in the field, and by 1855 several of the largest estab- 

 lishments in the country were engaged in the manufacture of 

 ladies' worsted dress goods. 



The use of the worsted process in garments for men's wear is 

 as recent as the year 1866. It appears to have originated in 

 England, where Josiah Lodge, of Huddlesfield, claims to have 

 been the first to utilize the process in the manufacture of men's 

 trouserings and suitings. The innovation was quickly adopted in 

 France, in Germany, and in the United States, and these worsted 

 suitings are so popular and so serviceable that the manufacture 

 of wool goods may almost be said to have been revolutionized 

 in the interval. There are to-day as many persons and looms 

 employed in the worsted manufacture in England as in the 

 woolen manufacture, and the substitution of worsted for woolen 

 machinery has been going on at a rapid rate. The largest wool 

 manufacturing establishment in the world, that of Isaac H olden 

 & Sons, at Bradford, England, contains three hundred sets of 

 cards and three hundred combing machines, and is exclusively 

 employed in the manufacture of " tops " for the worsted spinners. 

 In this country our largest mills are engaged in spinning worsted 

 yarns and weaving worsted cloths. In their equipment they run 

 from two or three combs up to fifty or sixty, and from ten thou- 

 sand to fifty thousand spindles. It is impossible to state a rela- 

 tionship between combs and spindles, owing to the great variety 

 of the yarns and fabrics made from worsted. Although no radi- 

 cal improvements have recently been made in the comb, the effi- 

 ciency has been increased about thirty per cent in the last twenty 

 years. In 1870 the product of a comb was from four hundred to 

 four hundred and fifty pounds a day. The same labor will now 

 produce from seven hundred to eight hundred pounds, yielding a 

 better quality of product. 



