pers who do not care for them under 

 the first name buy them readily under 

 the new one. 



A lady recently asked me to tell her 

 the difference between muslin and long 

 cloth. I thought there might be a dif 

 ference, but have been unable to find 

 anyone who can tell what it is. Both 

 names are applied to white cotton 

 goods of various degrees of fineness. 

 Long cloth is of a superior quality of 

 cotton, and so is muslin when intended 

 for dress goods. Some of the names 

 under which white cotton goods are 

 sold are muslins, tarletans, mulls, jaco 

 nets, nainsooks, lawns, grenadines, sac- 

 carillas, cottonade, cotton velvet, and 

 velveteen. 



Cotton is rarely manufactured where 

 raised. It is carried to the seacoast as 

 a rule by river steamers, though there 

 have been instances where the laziness 

 and ingenuity of man have combined 

 to send it down-stream in bales com 

 pletely covered with india rubber wrap 

 pings, so they floated to their destina 

 tion with little care and no harm from 

 water. 



With all our boasted Yankee shrewd 

 ness and cunning in mechanics we do 

 not make up the finer grades of cotton 

 very extensively. As a rule the coarser 

 kinds of cloth that take much material 

 and less skill are made here, while the 

 finer grades that get more value out of 

 the pound of cotton are made abroad, 

 chiefly in Great Britain. 



As an indication of this the figures 

 taken in the year 1884 form a striking 

 illustration. The average amount of 

 cotton spun by each spindle in Great 

 Britain that year was thirty-four and a 

 half pounds, while the amount con 

 sumed by each spindle in America av 

 eraged just sixty-five pounds, showing 

 that the products of our spindles are 

 just twice as heavy on the average as 

 those of the English and Scotch. A 

 fortunate thing about our goods when 

 sent abroad is that they are accurately 

 marked and prove to be very nearly 

 what they are represented. This is not 

 the case with goods shipped out of 

 Great Britain, where their long expe 

 rience in handling cotton hasmadethem 

 more expert than we in stuffing their 

 goods with sizing and other adultera 



tions which make the goods deceptive. 

 There is so little tendency in this di 

 rection among American manufactur 

 ers that our good name has given us an 

 advantage in China and India, where 

 our manufactures are much more readily 

 sold than what purport to be the same of 

 British make. 



Most of our cotton that is not ex 

 ported is made up into yarns, threads, 

 and the coarser goods, ;>uch as shirt 

 ings, sheetings, drills, print cloths, bags, 

 and so forth. Yetthere are several of our 

 mills, especially in the North, that turn 

 out the finer fabrics with great credit 

 to the country. Large quantities of 

 cotton are, of course, used up in woolen 

 mills, where mixed goods are made, 

 and hosiery mills, felt factories, and 

 hat works consume it largely. Much 

 cotton also goes into mattresses and 

 upholstery. 



It comes from a boll having three or 

 five cells. This bursts open when it is 

 ripe. Cotton fiber is either white or 

 yellow, and varies in length from a 

 little over half an inch to two inches. 

 When gathered it is separated from its 

 clinging seeds by the cotton gin, and is 

 then pressed firmly in bales weighing 

 about five hundred pounds each, 

 although in some countries the custom 

 ary sizes of bales vary two or three 

 hundred pounds from this weight. 



Of the twenty or more varieties of 

 cotton but two are given much atten 

 tion in the United States. These are the 

 famous sea island cotton and the com 

 mon, woolly-seed kind. The sea island 

 cotton grows on the islands off the coast 

 of South Carolina, in Florida, and on 

 the coast of Texas. The peculiar salt 

 air and humidity of these coasts seem 

 necessary to its perfection, for when it 

 is planted in the interior it quickly 

 loses its best qualities and becomes 

 similar to the common variety. Its 

 fibers are long and silky, and used for 

 the finest laces, spool cotton, fine mus 

 lins, and such goods, but there is so 

 little of it as compared with the woolly 

 seed cotton that it is but an insignifi 

 cant part of our great crop. 



Cotton is the only fibre that is natur 

 ally produced ready to be worked di 

 rectly into cloth without special chem 

 ical or mechanical treatment. It is the 



