The mill
is a large, well-lighted brick structure, with fields around it, and
another factory on one side, on the outskirts of a factory town. The
establishment is composed of a larger and newer well-ventilated building,
with washed air blown through the work-rooms; and an older building,
where the part of the work is carried on which necessitates both heat and
dampness to prevent the threads from breaking.
The cotton, which is of extremely fine quality, comes into the picker
building in great bales from our Southern sea-coast and from Egypt. It is
fed into the first of a series of cleaners, from the last of which it
issues in a long, flat sheet, to go through the processes of carding,
combing, drawing, and making into roving. The carding product consists of
a very delicate web, which, after being run through a trumpet and between
rollers, forms a "sliver" of the size of two of one's fingers, from which
it issues in a long strand. This strand or sliver Is threaded into a
machine with other ends of slivers and rolled out again in one stronger
strand; and this doubling and drawing process is innumerably repeated,
till the final roving is fed into a machine that gives it a twist once in
an inch and winds it on a bobbin.
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