Products.—Having brought under notice a condensed view of wool as a raw material, showing its nature, variety, sources of production, and chief applications, and having followed it through the various processes of the three principal industries of which it forms the basis, and in which it is transformed iuto articles of utility, a brief enumeration of the varied products may be permit fed.
Woollen goods is a comprehensive phrase, and includes all those articles manufactured from carded wools by the processes previously described. At the head of this class, deservedly stand the celebrated broad-cloths of the West of England. In the last century and during the first half of the present one, scarcely any articles except broad-cloths, plain woven fabrics, and Kerseymeres or twilled fabrics, were available for the consumption of the male sex. These were uniform in colour, variety of colour and shade being all the changes available to meet the demands of fashion. The first-mentioned article has undergone no important change for centuries, except approaching greater perfection of finish, arising from improved methods of manufacture and the introduction of finer wools. The industry is widely spread, but in no centre are the articles produced by the West of England surpassed in the best and most essential qualities of a good fabric,—thicknees, solidity, suppleness, fineness, and beauty. This has been amply demonstrated at the numerous international exhibitions that have been held during the past 20-30 years, and which have permitted corepsrisou to be made with the productions of other natione. In the best goods, the highest priced Silesian or Electoral wools are almost exclusively employed. A fighter class of these fabrics are made in Germany, the beauty and excellence of which can hardly be surpassed. Those of France also possess high qualities. America scarcely produces any broad-eloths.
A great change was inaugurated in the manufactnre of cloths in 1831 by the adaptation of the jacquard attachment to the production of fancy woollen cloths. This was first done by Bohjean, a woollen rnanufacturer of Sedan. He conceived the idea of modifying the plain cloths hitherto universally made, by uniting upon the same stuff different tints or patterns of tissue, which he was enabled to effect by means of the jactinard. It was soon evident that there could be no end to the variety of patterns that could now easily be produced, and that fancy could henceforth be allowed free play. From this fact, the name of " fancy " woollens was derived. This process was 80011
extensively imitated in France, Germany, England, and America. In the last country, George Crompton, a Lancashire emigrant, having his attention drawn to these goods, invented a loom specially adapted to their productioa, and which, known by his name, has since been extensively introduced into the trade. Similar looms have been devised by other inventors, and a large trade in these goods has been created in all countries possessing an established woollen industry. As consequence the products are innumerable, and in style and pattern vary with the changing seasons.
Flannel manufacture is a considerable branch of the woollen trade. Flaunel is cloth which only passes through two or three of the processes subsequent to weaving. Flannels are extensively worn by all classes of society, both male and female, for under-garments, for which they aro exceedingly well suited. They are extensively praluced in England, Germany, France, and America. A comparison of English and American flannels shows that the latter have tho yarns rather more closely twisted or spun, to prevent or dhninish shrinkage. Flannels are made plain, twilled, dyed and printed, and in unions of cotton warp and woollen filling, or otherwise, as more frequently of late, the cotton being introduced in the fibrous state, and mixed with the wool in the earliest stages. A high class article is obtained by the employment of a silk warp, and yarns from a high grade of wool. Blankets for bed-wear are a heavier description of flaunel, and constitute au extensive manufacture.
Worsteds, the next great class of textures of which wool forms the raw material, offer much greater diversity than the preceding. The first point of difference is that the yarns axe composed of combed wools, and the fabrics are rarely shrunk in any stage of the manufacturing process. Thirty or forty years ago these products alrnost exclusively appertained to female uses, as did woollens to men's purposes. Since that time, however, great changes have taken place, and the softer sex have successfully claimed a large portion of the products of tho woollen iudustry, whilst on the other hand men have occasionally adopted worsted goods for wear, espeeially in coatings. As a division, this branch is equal to if not superior in importance to the woollen manufacture.