CHAPTER VI.
WOOLEN RUGS.
There are two conditions which will make home weaving valuable. The first is that the material, whether it be of cotton or wool, should be grown upon the farm, and that it could not be sold in the raw state at a price which would make the growing of it profitable. In wool crops there are certain odds and ends of ragged, stained and torn locks, which would injure the appearance of the fleece, and are therefore thrown aside, and this waste is perfectly suitable for rug weaving.
In cotton there is not the amount of waste, but the fibre itself is not as valuable, and a portion of it could be reserved for home weaving, even though it should not be turned to more profitable account.
The next condition is that the time used in weaving is also waste or left-over time. If housekeeping requires only a quarter or half of a woman’s time, weaving is more restful and interesting, as well as more profitable, than idleness; and in almost every family there are members to whom partial employment would be a boon.
There is no marketable value for spare time or for individual taste, so that the women of the family possessing these can start a weaving enterprise, counting only the cost of material at growers’ prices. If they can card, spin, dye and weave as well as the women of two generations did before them, they have a most profitable industry in their own hands in the shape of weaving.
If materials must be purchased the profit is smaller, and the question arises whether spare time and personal taste and skill can be made profitable. This depends entirely upon circumstances and character. When circumstances are or can be made favourable, and there is industry and ambition behind them, domestic weaving is a beautiful and profitable occupation.
There are many neighbourhoods where the conditions are exactly suitable to the prosecution of important domestic industries—localities where sheep are raised and wool is a regular product, or where cotton is grown and the weaving habit is not extinct. This is true of many New England neighbourhoods and of the whole Cumberland Mountain region, and it is in response to a demand for direction of unapplied advantages that this book is written.
I am convinced that the weaving of domestic wool or cotton rugs might be so developed in the mountain regions of the South as to greatly decrease the importation of Eastern ones of the same grade.
An endless variety might be made in these localities, the difference of climate, material and habits of thought adding interest as well as variety, and it is safe to say that the home market is waiting for them. Housekeepers have learned by experience that a rug which can be easily lifted and frequently shaken is not only far more cleanly, and consequently safer, from a sanitary point of view, than a carpet, but that it has other merits which are of economic as well as esthetic importance.