With all our boasted Yankee shrewdness and cunning in mechanics we do not make up the finer grades of cotton very extensively. As a rule the coarser kinds of cloth that take much material and less skill are made here, while the finer grades that get more value out of the pound of cotton are made abroad, chiefly in Great Britain.

As an indication of this the figures taken in the year 1884 form a striking illustration. The average amount of cotton spun by each spindle in Great Britain that year was thirty-four and a half pounds, while the amount consumed by each spindle in America averaged just sixty-five pounds, showing that the products of our spindles are just twice as heavy on the average as those of the English and Scotch. A fortunate thing about our goods when sent abroad is that they are accurately marked and prove to be very nearly what they are represented. This is not the case with goods shipped out of Great Britain, where their long experience in handling cotton has made them more expert than we in stuffing their goods with sizing and other adulterations which make the goods deceptive. There is so little tendency in this direction among American manufacturers that our good name has given us an advantage in China and India, where our manufactures are much more readily sold than what purport to be the same of British make.

Most of our cotton that is not exported is made up into yarns, threads, and the coarser goods, such as shirtings, sheetings, drills, print cloths, bags, and so forth. Yet there are several of our mills, especially in the North, that turn out the finer fabrics with great credit to the country. Large quantities of cotton are, of course, used up in woolen mills, where mixed goods are made, and hosiery mills, felt factories, and hat works consume it largely. Much cotton also goes into mattresses and upholstery.

It comes from a boll having three or five cells. This bursts open when it is ripe. Cotton fiber is either white or Yellow, and varies in length from a little over half an inch to two inches. When gathered it is separated from its clinging seeds by the cotton gin, and is then pressed firmly in bales weighing about five hundred pounds each, although in some countries the customary sizes of bales vary two or three hundred pounds from this weight.

Of the twenty or more varieties of cotton but two are given much attention in the United States. These are the famous sea island cotton and the common, woolly-seed kind. The sea island cotton grows on the islands off the coast of South Carolina, in Florida, and on the coast of Texas. The peculiar salt air and humidity of these coasts seem necessary to its perfection, for when it is planted in the interior it quickly loses its best qualities and becomes similar to the common variety. Its fibers are long and silky, and used for the finest laces, spool cotton, fine muslins, and such goods, but there is so little of it as compared with the woolly seed cotton that it is but an insignificant part of our great crop.

Cotton is the only fibre that is naturally produced ready to be worked directly into cloth without special chemical or mechanical treatment. It is the great article of comfortable and cheap covering for mans person. When gathered and baled it is in a knotted and lumpy state, from which it is rather difficult to extricate the fibers and arrange them for spinning. As we follow the cotton through the mill we come to these machines in the following order: It goes to the opener first, where it is beaten and spread out so that a strong draft of air drives out much of its impurities; it then goes to the scutcher after being formed into laps; the lap machine makes it into flat folds; the carding engine not only cards it but straightens the fiber and gives it another cleaning; in the drawing frame it is arranged in loose ropes with the fibers parallel; then the slubbing frame gives it a slight twist; the intermediate and finishing frames twist it still farther, especially when preparing it for the higher numbers; the throstle frame prepares coarse warps; and on the mules, either self-acting or hand, the coarse or fine yarns are spun. In some systems several operations are performed by the same machine.

Weaving follows. It consists in passing threads over and under each other as a stocking is darned, the main difference being that in darning the needle passes up and down to get over or under the threads it meets, while in weaving the threads met by the moving thread move out of the way so the shuttle may pass straight through the whole width of the cloth. As the shuttle comes back the threads are reversed so that the ones that were up before are now down and those that were down are now up. The machine that holds many threads for this work is the loom.