Mills and In structural equipment the modern American mill is in some respects superior to the average foreign mill. It is not so massive a structure, nor so solidly built, brick being used here, while the English generally use stone; hut in the lightness and airiness of its rooms, in economy of arrange ment and in general completeness of equipment and care for the comfort and convenience of the operatives, it is usually super. The lesson is fast being learned by our textile manufac turers that in these days of close competition arid small profits successful manufacturing re quires that buildings shall be of the latest design and the most approved management, and that machinery shall not only be modern in make, with every latest improvement, but must also be kept in perfect condition by constant renewal. Many parts of the machinery required for the equipment of our textile mills are still necessarily imported from England, because not made, or less perfectly made, in the United States. Our machine manufacturers have been advancing as rapidly in recent years as the textile mills themselves, and the time cannot now be far distant when every new mill built in America will be equipped throughout with American-made machinery. But here again the United States shows a firm grip and exports have reached beyond the million dollar mark. Textile machinery in 1914 was being made in 241 establishments valued at $30,437,689. In that year machinery,was exported to the value of $1,308,048.
Variety of The American textile mills now supply practically every variety of fabric made in the world, with the exception of linens and the very finest grades of other fabrics. Great sums of money have from time to time been invested by daring manufacturers in constructing plants for the manufacture of linen fabrics. The result has often been dis appointment and failure. These obstacles are climatic in the first instance, flax being a fibre which requires more moisture than any other for its successful manipulation. Again, there is difficulty in obtaining a home supply of suit able raw material. Years of high protection have failed to persuade the American farmer into growing flax for fibre. The history of the linen manufacture in other countries seems to establish the fact that it is the one textile manu facture likely to remain segregated in a few localities like Holland and Ireland, where the fibre is grown on the spot, where the climate is peculiarly adapted and where the help has ac quired an expertness born of generations of experience. Moreover, linen is the one textile the consumption of which has not appreciably increased with the growing perfection of textile machinery. The other fibres, less difficult to handle, more susceptible to cheap manipulation, continually encroach upon its uses.
Silk Industry.— Perhaps the most striking contrast to our experience with linen is that afforded by the silk manufacture. At first sight it would appear that this must be the particular textile industry which could not flourish in America. Since last century's whirlwind of speculative mania to cultivate the silkworm which swept New England in the thirties, and wrecked the fortunes of many too credulous farmers, we have settled down to the convic tion that America cannot grow raw silk in com petition with China, Japan and Italy. More over, the silk manufacture, like the linen, has always been highly specialized and localized.
The city of Lyons, in France, had well nigh monopolized the manufacture, so far as it had escaped from the hand processes of the Eastern grain dress silks was then started, and at the present time brocaded silks and satins are manufactured on a large scale; indeed there is no form of fabric into which silk enters which is not now produced in great variety. Especially noteworthy has been the recent de velopment in the manufacture of silk plushes and all varieties of upholstery goods. The value of home-made silk goods was in 1880 just about equal to the foreign value of the goods im ported. In 1890 the product had so grown that it was nearly double the value of the imports, and more than double the value of the product in 1880. During the next decade the rate of in crease was accelerated. In Paterson is the larg est silk-ribbon mill in the world. Another mill in that city, an outgrowth of the little mill oper ated by John .Ryle, covers an acre and a half, and can nowhere be surpassed for size or com pleteness of equipment. See Stu( AND SILK INDUSTRY (History of the Industry in the United States).
The consumption of raw silk in recent years is as follows (in pounds) : 1914, 25,021,945; 1909, 17,729,306; 1904, 11,572,783 ; 1899, 9,760, 770. Statistics of the silk industry are given below: nations. The skill and taste of generations have been concentrated upon the production at these centres, of fabrics which in beauty of design, in richness of coloring, in delicacy of workmanship, alone among the fabriCs made by modern machinery, rival the splendors of medieval textile art. England has for centuries struggled in vain to place her silk manufac ture on equal terms with it. Nevertheless we have built up in America, in the last 45 years, a silk industry which among machine-using nations is second only to that of France, and is to-day supplying our people with the bulk of the silken fabrics consumed by them. We owe this great achievement largely to the energy and the genius of the Cheney family, father and sons, of South Manchester, Conn. The Cheneys began the manufacture of spun silk nearly half a century ago. About the same time, John Ryle, sometimes called the father of the American silk industry, had become superintendent of a little silk mill in Paterson, N. J., which he afterward purchased and gradu ally enlarged. At first sewing silks only were made, then ribbons were added, and in 1842 Mr. Ryle built a number of looms for silk piece-goods— the first to be successfully oper ated in America; and the industry in all its branches has since developed so rapidly there that Paterson, which calls itself the Lyons of America, now occupies to this industry the same relation that Fall River does to the cot ton manufacture and Philadelphia to the wool manufacture. During the Civil War the high duties stimulated the silk industry and diversi fied its product. The making of .plain gros • Other important statistics in the silk industry are the following: Amounts of spindles in use: Throwing (raw silk) in 1914, 677,960; 1909, 637,565; 1904, 624,686; 1899, 442,410. Spinning and Twisting in 1914, 2,023,491; 1909, 1,647,415. Spinning of Spun Silk in 1914, 107,251; 1909, 130,547. Thrown and spun silk in 1904 and 1899 amounted respectively to $1,394,020 and $1,213,493.