piece goods made.

The first operation in the manufacture is that of ginning, which is
conducted by means of a small implement called the _rokuro_, or
windlass. This consists of two wooden rollers revolving in opposite
directions, fixed on a frame about 12 inches high and 6 inches in
width, standing on a small platform, the dimensions of which slightly
exceed that of the frame. The operator, usually a woman, kneels on one
side of the frame, holding it firm by her weight, works the roller
with one hand, and with the other presses the cotton, which she takes
from a heap at her side, between the rollers. The cotton passes
through, falling in small lumps on the other side of the frame, while
the seeds fall on that nearest the woman. The utmost weight of
unginned cotton that one woman working an entire day of ten hours can
give is from 8 lb. to 10 lb., which gives, in the end, only a little
over 3 lb. weight of ginned cotton, and her daily earnings amount to
less than 2d. A few saw gins have been introduced into Japan during
the last fifteen years, but no effort has been made to secure their
distribution throughout the country districts. After ginning, a
certain proportion of the seed is reserved for the agricultural
requirements of the following year, and the remainder is sent to oil
factories, where it is pressed, and yields about one-eighth of its
capacity in measurement in oil, the refuse, after pressing, being used
for manure. The ginning having been finished in the country districts,
the cotton is either packed in bales and sent to the dealers in the
cities, or else the next process, that of carding, is at once
proceeded with on the spot.

This process is almost as primitive as that of the ginning. A long
bamboo, sufficiently thin to be flexible, is fastened at its base to a
pillar or the corner of a small room. It slopes upward into the center
of the room, and from its upper end a hempen cord is suspended. To
this is fastened the "bow," an instrument made of oak, about five feet
in length, two inches in circumference, and shaped like a ladle. A
string of coarse catgut is tightly stretched from end to end of the
bow, and this is beaten with a small mallet made of willow, bound at
the end with a ring of iron or brass. The raw cotton, in its coarse
state, is piled on the floor just underneath the string of the bow.
The string is then rapidly beaten with the mallet, and as it rises and
falls it catches the rough cotton