COTTON 
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onous roar, gloomy and melancholy as the north 
wind itself, may yet be heard on wintry days in 
many a humble home of the rural South: if one 
cares to study the question further, let him read 
Thomas Buchanan Read's famous poem, "The 
Closing Scene. " Of course the work of this hand 
spinning wheel was — and is — slow and laborious, 
and it followed naturally that the product should 
be relatively expensive, and the wage of the laborer 
small indeed. 
THE COMING OF IMPROVED INVENTIONS 
The inauguration of the new scheme in manu- 
facturing was bound to work to its advantage, and 
hasten its development. It was no longer an 
individual concern. It now became a community 
interest, so governed, controlled and directed. 
Singular indeed is it that just at this critical 
period a number of improved inventions should be 
made, following one another just as men most 
needed them, and covering too, such widely differ- 
ent fields of human activity. Even the schoolboy 
has heard of the epoch making spinning- jenny of 
Hargreaves; spinning-frame of Arkwright; power 
loom of Cartwright; Watt's steam engine and 
Whitney's cotton gin. 
First the spinning- jenny came in 1767, enabling 
from 16 to 30 threads to be spun with the same 
facility as one had been spun previously to that 
time, and it was subsequently brought to such 
perfection that a little girl was enabled to work 
from 80 to 100 spindles. 
While this invention itself marked a great 
advance, it did not go far enough, since the jenny 
then in use was applicable only to the spinning of 
