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than Massachusetts, for wild flax grew there in profusion, ready for
gathering. In 1646 two houses were ordered to be erected at Jamestown as
spinning-schools. These were to be well built and well heated. Each
county was to send to these schools two poor children, seven or eight
years old, to be taught carding, spinning, and knitting. Each child was
to be supplied by the county authorities on admission to the school with
six barrels of Indian corn, a pig, two hens, clothing, shoes, a bed,
rug, blanket, two coverlets, a wooden tray, and two pewter dishes or
cups. This plan was not wholly carried out. Prizes in tobacco (which was
the current money of Virginia in which everything was paid) were given,
however, for every pound of flax, every skein of yarn, every yard of
linen of Virginia production, and soon flax-wheels and spinners were
plentiful.

Intelligent attempts were made to start these industries in the South.
Governor Lucas wrote to his daughter, Mrs. Pinckney, in Charleston,
South Carolina, in 1745:--

"I send by this Sloop two Irish servants, viz.: a Weaver and a
Spinner. I am informed Mr. Cattle hath produced both Flax and Hemp.
I pray you will purchase some, and order a loom and spinning-wheel
to be made for them, and set them to work. I shall order Flax sent
from Philadelphia with seed, that they may not be idle. I pray you
will also purchase Wool and sett them to making Negroes clothing
which may be sufficient for my own People.

"As I am afraid one Spinner can't keep a Loom at work, I pray you
will order a Sensible Negroe woman or two to learn to spin, and
wheels to be made for them; the man Servant will direct the
Carpenter in making the loom and the woman will direct the Wheel."

The following year Madam Pinckney wrote to her father that the woman had
spun all the material they could get, so was idle; that the loom had
been made, but had no tackling; that she would make the harness for it,
if two pounds of shoemaker's thread were sent her. The sensible negro
woman and hundreds of others learned well to spin, and excellent cloth
has been always woven in the low country of Carolina, as well as in the
upper districts, till our own time.

In the revolt of feeling caused by the Stamp Act, there was a constant
social pressure to encourage the manufacture and wearing of goods of
American manufacture. As one evidence of this movement the president and