facture by
an intelligent application of art is really marvelous. The product
came under the attention of a woman trained in that valuable school,
"The Institute of Artist Artisans." She tried the experiment of using
new material carefully dyed to follow certain Oriental designs, and
the result is a smooth, velvety, thick-piled rug, which cannot be
distinguished from a fine Oriental rug of the same pattern. The cost
of this manufacture is necessarily considerable, since the process is
slow and the material costly. But in spite of these disadvantages, the
drawn rugs have met with deserved favour, and are a source of
profitable labour to the community. It is undoubtedly the beginning of
an important industry, which owes its success entirely to the art
education of one woman.

There is an improvement somewhat akin to this in the weaving of
rag-carpet rugs, and this is not confined to one locality. It consists
in the use of _new_ rags, carefully selected as to colour both of rags
and warp, and the result is surprisingly good.

One might say that we have in this country peculiar advantages for
positive artistic excellence as well as volume of production. We grow
our own wool and cotton. We have a great and growing population, with
such application of mechanical invention to routine and necessary work
as greatly to reduce household labour. Added to this, there has been
during the last ten years so much and such general art study as to
have created a sort of diffused love of art manufactures, so that many
of the people who would naturally adopt the work would have an
instructive judgment regarding it. I should not be afraid to predict
great and even peculiar excellence in any domestic manufacture which
became the habit of any given locality.

_The subject of our domestic industries is one which should fall
naturally within the objects of women's clubs._ If every woman's club
in the country chose from its members those who by artistic instinct
or education, and the possession of practical ability, were fitted to
lead in the work, and made of them a committee on home industries, the
reports from it would soon become a matter of absorbing interest to
the club, and the productions made under the protection, so to speak,
of the club, would have an advantage that any commercial business
would consider invaluable. Neither would the advantage be limited by
the interest of a single club. That great social engine, "The
Federation of