210 WANT OF MACHINERY. 



by the peasantry for clothing, which, in fact, 

 with some other similar domestic stuffs, to- 

 gether with buckskin, constituted almost the 

 only article of wear they were possessed ofj 

 till the trade from IVIissouri furnished them 

 with foreign fabrics at more reasonable prices 

 than they had been in the habit of paying to 

 the traders of the southern provinces. Their 

 domestic textures are nearly all of wool, there 

 being no flax or hemp* and but httle cotton 

 spun. The manuflicture evezi of these arti- 

 cles is greatly embarrassed for want of good. 

 spinning and weaving machinery. Much of 

 the spinning is done with the huso or mala- 

 cate^ (the whirligig spindle), which is kept 

 whirling in a bowl with the fingers while the 

 thread is drawn. The dexterity with which 

 the females spin with this simple apparatus is 

 truly astonishing. 



teen remarked, thougFi 



-v^.ii .tiiiu^fi^cu, Luuugn inmgenous, is nownere cuitivaiea. ^"^ 

 court of Spain (as Clavigero tells us, speaking of Michuacan, 

 IVew Mexico, and Quivira, where he says flax was to be iouni m 

 great abundance), informed of the regions adapted to the cultiva- 

 tion of this plant, sent to those countries, about the year 1778, 

 twelve families from the valley of Granada, for the purpose of 

 promoting so important a branch of acricultur^ " The ente 



The enterpnse 



seems never to have been prosecuted, however— at least in New 



