Cotton Manufacturing in the South [pp. 384-390]

COTTON MANUFACTURING IN THE SOUTH.
carding is heavy and rapid. To obviate all these objections to
the use of iron cylinders and those of ordinary seasoned wood,
Mr. B. H. Jenks, at the Bridesburg Manufacturing Company's
Works, first hews out the wood in the rough ready to be worked
up into cylinders, and then exposes it in a vacuum-chamber to extract all its moisture and juices, and also all the air and gases
from its spiracles. This he accomplishes thoroughly. Then,
while the wood is in the vacuum, he introduces caoutchouc, paraffine, or some oleaginous fluid into the vacuum-chamber. The
pieces of wood quickly and fully absorb it.
Mr. Jenks prefers using paraffine on account of its cheapness:
but he also uses other substances the effect of which is to harden
the wood and render it completely moisture-proof and waterproof. His card-cylinders and rollers made of wood thus treated
will not shrink or swell, and the card-teeth applied to one cylinder will always maintain the same relative position with respect
to the card-teeth of another cylinder.
The same ingenuity and science applied to the construction of
the Bridesburg Company's Looms have introduced into them
no less than eight distinct and very valuable imnprovemnents, all
of them patented in Europe and America. Yet none of these
patents enhance the cost of the machines to the purchasers.
MIany improvements, not made the subjects of patents, characterize all the machines manufactured by this Company, and are
appreciable at a glance by spinners and weavers, as giving to
their use greater safety, better economy and more convenience.
On the opposite page is a cut which will give an idea of the
Bridesburg MAanuicturing Companry's iMuslin Loom. These
looms will run 160 picks per minute, producing 9 lbs. of muslin
4 wide, 64 picks to the inch per day. On the next leaf to that
of the muslin loom is a cult of' Jenks' Gingham Loom which is
considered to be the best of its class, this loom will run 130 picks
per minute.
If the South shall decide, as she ought to decide, to diversify
her industry, and particularly to avail herself of her advantage
over the world of manufacturing her cotton as it were on the
very ground on which it grows, it will be a question of grave
consequence to her to decide, where she will buy her machinery.
The true solution of this question assuredly will not be found
in a comparison of price-lists. The manufacturer who shall start
a mill upon the cheapest of three or four competing outfits of
machinery may easily be undersold by a neighbor who buys the
dearest. The cheapest machinery is the BEST macliiery. This is a
fundamental law in cotton manufacturing, and disregard of it in
starting a factory will inevitably be punished. Where then shall
Southerners buy? Without hesitation we say, buy in the
United States-and for these reasons:
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