s of spinning, dyeing
and weaving could be carried on in any farmhouse, using the coarsest
and least valuable wool, and by reliable and well-chosen colour, good
weight and careful weaving bringing the manufacture into a prominent
place among the home productions of our people.

One can hardly imagine simpler machinery than is used by the Indians.
It is scarcely more than a parallelogram of sticks, supported by a
back brace, and yet upon these simple looms an Indian woman will
weave a fabric that will actually hold water.

The clumsy, old-fashioned loom which is still in use in many
farmhouses is fully equal to all demands of this variety of weaving,
but there are already in the market steel-frame looms with fly
shuttles which take up much less room and are more easily worked. I
was about to say they were capable of better work, but nothing could
be better in method than the Indian rug, woven on its three upright
sticks; and after all it is well to remember that _quality is in the
weaver_, and not in the loom. The results obtained from the simplest
machinery can be made to cover ground which is truly artistic.

As an example of what may be done to make this kind of weaving
available, we will suppose that some one having an ordinary loom, and
in the habit of weaving rag carpet, wishes to experiment toward the
production of a good yarn rug. The first thing required would, of
course, be material for both warp and woof.

The warp can be made of strong cotton yarn which is manufactured for
this very purpose and can be bought for about seventeen cents a
pound. This is probably cheaper than it could be carded and spun at
home even on a cotton-growing farm.

The wool filling should be coarse and slack-twisted, and on
wool-growing farms or in wool-growing districts is easily produced. If
it is of home manufacture, it may be spun as loosely or slackly as
possible, dyed and woven without doubling, which will be seen to be an
economy of labor. The single thread, slackly twisted, gives a very
desirable elasticity to the fabric, because the wool fibre is not too
closely bound or packed. On the other hand, if the wool as well as the
warp must be bought, it is best to get it from the spinning machine in
its first state of the single thread, and do the doubling and twisting
at home. In this case it can be doubled as many or as few times as it
is thought best, and twisted as little as possible.

The next and most important thing is