RUGS, Weaving of. The .cot unerce in Oriental rugs in the United States, especially those from Persia„ Russia and Turkey, is very considerable. A few came from India and China, and some are woven in Afghanistan and teluchistan. While there is a large production of rugs of various kinds in America, the im ported rugs continue to hold high.favor among American buyers. Many of the costly Eastern rugs are as simply woven as a Navajo blanket, an Indian product, or even as a rag carpet. The process is in many cases, almost identical, the variation being only in closeness or fineness of warp and arrangement of color. The manu facture of rugs in the United States is an in dustry of considerable importance. A great variety of weaves is produced — woolen, cotton and grass rugs, in some cases after European models and methods and in others after original designs and methods of construction, both as to the machinery used, the dyeing of the fabrics and the designs. Grass rugs for the country house have recently won prominence in our domestic commerce. Some of these are made of tough fibres and others of less durable ma terial. Some have their colors woven into the mesh and some have stencilled designs in fast colors.
Another phase of the weaving of rugs in the United States is their manufacture in the home. Rag carpets have been made and, used in farmhouses for many generations, but9f late there has been a general demand, especially in country houses, for home-made piazza rugs, bedroom rugs and rugs for general use. An authority 'on the home weaving of rugs is Mrs. Candace Wheeler, whose recent work on (How to Make Rugs' is a practical handbook. In it the Onteora, the Lois, the Isle La Motte, the Lucy and other home-made designs are de scribed. The pattern, 'the dyeing and braiding the fringe of the border all are featured in detail. This writer staites• that gthe .cumbrous
old woolen loom is still doing a certain amount of work in every country neighborhood. is capable of a greatly enlarged: and much more profitable I find very little, if any difference in the rugs woven upon these and the modern steel loom. It is true that the work is lighter and weaving goes faster. upoa the latter, and where a person or family makes an occu pation of weaving, it is probably better to have the latest improvements, but at is possible to begin and to make a success of rag-rug weav ing upon an old fashioned In the matter of pattern and coloring it is stated that the Onteora rug is made by using a proportion of half a pound of blue rags to the two and a half white required to make up the three pounds of cotton needed in a six-foot rug. The side border in the Lois rug is made upon the same blue warp, is separately woven and afterward added to the plain white rug with blue ends. Many of the rugs described by Mrs. Wheeler are washable. Her work also has been the building up of neighborhood industries in do mestic rug making, a labor which has taught both economy and art.
The larger subject of the domestic manu facture and commerce in rugs made in the United States may be broadly considered under the general subject of carpets (q.v.). The principal varieties of carpets now in use are the Turkey, the Axminster, the Brussels, the Wil ton, the Venetian, the Dutch, the Kidderminster or "Scotch, the Whytock's tapestry and velvet pile, and the printed felt carpet. Generally speaking, rugs, whether made in England or the United States, have somewhat similar designa tions and are similar in appearance though made on the most modern looms. A very beautiful fabric has also 'been Ustredused, called the Patent Wool Mosaic,