147 



DIVISION II. 

 PEODUCTS EMPLOYED IN MANUFACTUEES. 



CHAPTER VII. 



VEGETABLES USED FOE TEXTILE FABRICS. 



Next to food, we are most indebted to the Vegetable 

 Kingdom for clothing, and from the fibres of plants all 

 but the most barbarous tribes of the earth partly derive 

 the means of covering themselves. How the discovery was 

 first made of the means of obtaining and weaving vegetable 

 fibres we know not; but it is by no means improbable that man 

 first learned this useful lesson from watching the instinctive 

 labours of various animals ; thus, in many birds^ nests he 

 would see the process of weaving, and in the nests of wasps 

 and many other insects the manufacture of paper is clearly 



