Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-12-26

a little chock The sorter has a lot of
the broom corn handy, and now he picks
up spray of it, sets the butt against the
chock at his left and lays the spray along
the edge of the bench, its other end now
overlapping those measuring wires; and
as the corn drops upon them he runs his
right hand swiftly along the corn, feel
ing the wires underneath and so getting
the corns measure, and then with I'M
erring certainty he losses the spray into
the right box; and thus he keeps going
all day long. The next sorting. which
is for color. is one of only two operations
here required to be done by seeing men.
When the corn has been thus finally
sorted 1t is ready for the first broom
maker, the winder who attaches it to the
broom handle
The handle has bored through it at the
end to which the broom corn is TO be at
tached small hole The other end of
the handle. the broom maker now thrusts
through hole bored horizontally
through post set firmly in the floor and
rising TO convenient height. In this
hole through the post the broom handle
is held securely. while at the same time
it can be turned freely, and now tho
winder begins to put on the corn,
Through the little hole In the end of
the broom handle he runs first the end
of a wire which he makes fast there, and
then he picks up all at once from a pile
at hand half a dozen sprays of the corn.
Within convenient reach on the end of a
bench is a horizontal wooden bar upon
which he now spreads out the butts Of
the half-dozen sprays he has picked UP
and then with a sharp knife and with
one single sweep of it. he cuts off accu-
rately half the thickness OF the corn
butts. If this shaving down were not
done, the butts would make a thick.
clumsy bunch around the broom handle
at the top of the broom.
Then he lays the butts of those half
dozen sprays around the broom handle
and takes turn around them with the
WIRE and then he keeps on in just the
same way. adding bunch after bunch of
sprays and building up the broom. When
he comes to make the broom's shoulders,
the projecting sides at the broom's top,
he bends the sprays to conform them.
and as he adds bunch after bunch of the
sprays he keeps on wiring it at the top,
around the handle, and he may run the
wire in and out to make a little orna-
mental pattern, and then with the last
bunch on he cuts off the wire and turns
in the end and makes it fast.
Next the broom goes to the stripping
machine to be freed of the seeds and
buds that may still cling to the splints,
this being the other operation in the
broom making here that is done by a
seeing man.
Next the broom goes to the sewer, who
sets it, handle down. in a wooden wise,
in which it is squeezed into exactly its
proper shape and proportions, and then
the sewer sews the broom with as many
rows across as may be required: and
though the sewer cannot see, he sew5
these lines with perfect spacing between
| the loops and with the lines perfectly
straight and true. 45tt..
| And then the trimmer gets the broom.
| He sets it in another holder that holds
| it just as it ought to be, and then he
| brings down upon the still more or less
| jagged and uneven tips of the end of the
| broom a big hinged knife that cuts it
| off true and even; and then there's your
| finished broom, ready to be labeled, and
| then to be punched in dozens.-N. Y.
Sun.