Textiles and Clothing | Page 7

staple is longer and finer than linen. The great strength of yarn made from it is due to length of the staple.
The variety and great value of the ramie fibers has long been recognized, but difficulties attending the separation and degumming of the fibers have prevented its employment in the manufactures to any great extent. The native Chinese split and scrape the plant stems, steeping them in water. The common retting process used for flax is not effective on account of the large amount of gummy matter, and although easy to bleach it is difficult to dye in full bright shades without injuring the luster of the fibers.
[Sidenote: Jute and Hemp]
Jute and hemp belong to the lower order of bast fibers. The fiber is large and is unfit for any but the coarsest kind of fabrics. Jute is mainly cultivated in Bengal. The fiber is separated from the plant by retting, beating, etc.
[Illustration: JUTE GROWING IN LOUISIANA.
From Culture of Hemp and Jute, Report of U. S. Department of Agriculture.]
[Illustration: DRYING HEMP IN KENTUCKY
From "Culture of Hemp and Jute."]
[Sidenote: Olona]
Olona, the textile fiber of Hawaii, is found to have promising qualities. This plant resembles ramie and belongs to the nettle family also, but it is without the troublesome resin of the ramie. The fiber is fine, light, strong, and durable.
The Philippines are rich in fiber producing plants. The manila hemp is the most prominent, of which coarse cloth is woven, besides the valuable cordage. The sisal hemp, pineapple, yucca, and a number of fiber plants growing in the southern part of the United States are worthy of note. These fiber industries are conducted in a rude way, the fiber being cleaned by hand, except the pineapple.
SILK
The silk fiber is the most perfect as well as the most beautiful of all fibers. It is nearly faultless, fine and continuous, often measuring from 1000 to 4000 feet long, without a scale, joint, or a blemish, though not of the same diameter or fineness throughout its entire length, as it becomes finer as the interior of the cocoon is approached. Silk differs from all other vegetable or animal fibers by being devoid of all cellular structure.
[Sidenote: Where Produced]
Southern Europe leads in the silk worm culture--Italy, southern France, and Turkey, with China and India. Several species of moths, natives of India, China, and Japan, produce the wild silk. The most important of the "wild silks" are the Tussah. Silk plush and the coarser varieties of buff colored fabrics are made of this silk. While manufacturers do not favor the wild silk, the coarse uneven weave and softness make it a favorite with artists and it is being used for interior decoration as well as for clothing.
[Sidenote: Silk Worm]
The silk of commerce begins with an egg no bigger than a mustard seed, out of which comes a diminutive caterpillar, which is kept in a frame and fed upon mulberry leaves. When the caterpillars are full grown, they climb upon twigs placed for them and begin to spin or make the cocoon. The silk comes from two little orifices in the head in the form of a glutinous gum which hardens into a fine elastic fiber. With a motion of the head somewhat like the figure eight, the silk worm throws this thread around the body from head to tail until at last it is entirely enveloped. The body grows smaller and the thread grows finer until at last it has spun out most of the substance of the body and the task is done.
If left to itself, when the time came, the moth would eat its way out of the cocoon and ruin the fiber. A few of the best cocoons are saved for a new supply of caterpillars; the remainder are baked at a low heat which destroys the worm but preserves the silk. This now becomes the cocoon of commerce.
[Sidenote: Reeling Silk]
Next the cocoons go to the reelers who wind the filaments into the silk yarn that makes the raw material of our mills. The cocoons are thrown into warm water mixed with soap in order to dissolve the gum. The outer or coarser covering is brushed off down to the real silk and the end of the thread found. Four or five cocoons are wound together, the sticky fibers clinging to each other as they pass through the various guides and are wound as a single thread on the reels. The silk is dried and tied into hanks or skeins. As the thread unwinds from the cocoon, it becomes smaller, so other threads must be added.
[Illustration: SILK:--CATERPILLAR, COCOON, CHRYSALIS, MOTH]
[Sidenote: Organize and Tram]
At the mill the raw silk goes to the "throwster" who twists the silk threads ready for the loom. These threads are of two kinds--"organize" or warp and "tram" or filling.