making, shows that this pressure on old
methods was already felt. The raw material for such uses, as it comes
from the back of the sheep, the boll of the cotton plant, or the
crushed stems of the flax, is a tangled mass of fibre. The first
necessary step is to straighten out the threads of this fibre, which
is done in the case of wool by combing, in the others by carding, both
being done at that time by hand implements. The next step is spinning,
that is drawing out the fibres, which have been made parallel by
carding, into a slender cord, and at the same time twisting this
sufficiently to cause the individual fibres to take hold one of
another and thus make a thread of some strength. This was sometimes
done on the old high wheel, which was whirled around by hand and then
allowed to come to rest while another section of the cotton, wool, or
flax was drawn from the carded mass by hand, then whirled again,
twisting this thread and winding it up on the spindle, and so on. Or
it was done by the low wheel, which was kept whirling continuously by
the use of a treadle worked by the foot, while the material was being
drawn out all the time by the two hands, and twisted and wound
continuously by the horseshoe-shaped device known as the "flyer." When
the thread had been spun it was placed upon the loom; strong, firmly
spun material being necessary for the "warp" of upright threads,
softer and less tightly spun material for the "woof" or "weft," which
was wrapped on the shuttle and thrown horizontally by hand between the
two diverging lines of warp threads. After weaving, the fabric was
subjected to a number of processes of finishing, fulling, shearing,
dyeing, if that had not been done earlier, and others, according to
the nature of the cloth or the kind of surface desired.

In these successive stages of manufacture it was the spinning that was
apt to interpose the greatest obstacle, as it took the most time. From
time immemorial spinning had been done, as explained, on some form of
the spinning-wheel, and by women. One weaver continuously at work
could easily use up the product of five or six spinners. In the
domestic industry the weaving was of course carried on in the
dwelling-house by the father of the family with the grown sons or
journeymen, while the spinning was done for the most part by the women
and younger children of the family. As it could hardly be expected
that there would always be as large a proportion as six of