them by the drawing. The drawing frame is a machine consisting of a
number of sets of rollers, the front roller having a greater speed
than the rear ones.

[Illustration: COTTON COMB ROOM

1. The cotton in the form of a "lap" ready to pass through the comb.]

The slivers, which are as nearly as possible the same weight per
yard, are combined together in the drawing and emerge from the pair of
front rollers as one sliver weighing the same number of grains per
yard as a single sliver fed up at the back. This process is repeated
two or three times, according to requirements, the material then being
referred to as having passed through so many "heads" of drawing. It is
not unusual to pass Indian and American cotton through three
deliveries.

The object of all the processes thus far described has been that of
cleaning (in the picker), arranging the fibers in a parallel position
to each other, making uniform, and drawing out the stock. In every
case the stock delivered from a machine is lighter than when fed into
it, and contains just twist enough to hold it together and prevent its
being stretched or strained when unwound from the bobbin, and fed into
the next machine. The minimum amount of twist in roving is desirable
for the reason that it permits the stock to be drawn out more easily
and uniformly, the little twist that is put in the roving by the
slubber being practically eliminated when it is passed through the
rolls of the intermediate. The same applies in the case of the roving
passing from the roving to the spinning frame.

=Fly Frames.= The process in the manufacture of yarn after the cotton
has passed through the drawing frame consists of further attenuation
of the sliver, but as the cotton sliver has been drawn out as much as
is possible without breakage, a small amount of "twist" is introduced
to allow of the continued drawing out of the sliver.

From the drawing frame, the drawing passes through two, three, or four
fly frames, according to the number of yarn to be made. All these
machines are identical in principle and construction, and differ only
in the size of some of the working parts. They are the slubber,
intermediate, roving,--and fine or jack frame-fine, and the function
of each is to draw and twist.

[Illustration: ROVING DEPARTMENT

1. Slubber machine, showing sliver of cotton passing through the
rolls and then given a twist while it is wound on the bobbin.]

=Intermediate Frame.=