Macon beacon., 1891-05-23

into articles of wearing apparel, ana
the latter made from old and wornout
garments, wooden rags, in fact every
piece of wooden material, however
small, which have found their way into
the rag pickers' and peddlers' bags.
These rags, new and old, are first run
through machine called the picker,
which tears the yarns to pieces, after
which the product is mixed with clear
and new wool, and carded or combed
and spun. The quantity of new wool
necessary to make the spinning of the
shoddy possible depends upon the
length and strength of the shoddy
fiber.
Shoddy yarns made in this way were
formerly used in the weft only, but of
late manufacturers have come to use
more and more of them in the warp.
The great difficulty standing in the way
of their use in the warp is their great
liability to break
Extracts are, like shoddies made from
woolen rags, but they differ from shod-
dies in this respect that they are made
from rags which contain an admixture
of woolen and cotton yarns Before
such rags can be put through the pick
er, which breaks up the yarns into
fibers, the cotton yarns must be separ-
ated from the woolen yarns. This is
accomplished by soaking the rags in an
acid which, SO to speak, eats out the
cotton fhers but leaves those OF wool
intact. After the rags have gone
through this extracting process they go
through the picker and are treated in
the same way and are used for similar
purposes as shoddies. Extracts, how
ever. are not worth as much in the
markets as shoddies, since the acid
used in taking out the cotton Injuries
the wool fibers.
Flocks are entirely different in nature
and in the uses to which they are put,
from extracts and shoddies The great
er part of the f1ocks made result from
the finishing of cloth once woven. In
this process the cloth is run over sharp
knives which cut off the projecting
fibers Floclzs are therefore too short
to admit of carding or spinning-too
short even to be mixed with wool. They
are used, however, to increase the
weight of wooden and mixed fabrics.
This is accomplished by literally blow
ing them into the woven cloth.
The other substitutes for wool, such
as COW, goat, and other coarse animal
hair, find their chief use in the manu-
facture of carpets and SO great is the de-
mand for them for these purposes that
the price Of hair for use in mixing
plaster for houses has gone up consider
ably of late years.
It is difficult task for layman
to detect shoddies or extracts in the
garments which he is about to purchase,
for they are very ingeniously concealed
and made to look like raw wool. When
he has worn his coat for awhile the
wool fibers making up the yarn used
in the weft, nearly worn out as
they already are before they are manu-
factured, soon break, and their new
owner soon finds his garment shrinking
and threadbare
Flocks are so ingeniously blown into
the fabric from which our heavy coats
are made that their presence can be de-
tected only after the garment has been
worn for awhile, when they accumulate
in the corners and together with the
broken shoddy and extract fibers make
quite a large bunch.
1t is not alone in the manufacture OF
cloths and carpets that shoddies and
extracts are used. To such an extrem-
ity have the wool hat manufacturers
been forced in their competition with
fur hats by the high wool duties, that
as early as 1880 40 per cent of the ma
terials used by them was shoddy and
other substitutes, and to-day many wool
hats (they should be called shoddy hats
are sold which contain less than 80 per
oant clear new wool.