Sliver lappers in a Northern mill
It is interesting to note, however, that the majority of improvements have been the fruit of the brains, not of Americans, but of Englishmen. Copeland points out that this may be due to the English desire to save in the consumption of cotton, but that more probably it is due to the development of fine spinning in England, in which most of the machines here described are chiefly valuable; and he ventures the prediction that now that American 51 mills have definitely gone in for the finer counts, it may be expected that engineers here will apply themselves to the improvement of this machinery.
Drawing frames, turning slivers into roving
The "Mule" Versus
the Ring Spindle
Spinning is the final process which turns the cotton into firm, coherent yarn, sufficiently twisted, and ready for the loom. The twist given to the thread by the previous machines has been only enough to make the fibers hold together. They are still comparatively loose and fluffy, and their tensile strength is slight.
There are, in general, two types of spinning machines. The first, the mule, an English product. The second, radically different, is entirely American. It was invented in 1828 by James Thorpe, and immediately found some favor, but it was not until the Civil War that it was received on equal terms with the mule. Today, however, it dominates in the United States, the comparative figures in 1917 being: ring spindles 30,264,074; mule spindles 3,634,761. The disparity is growing greater every year, and the use of the ring is firmly established in other countries as well. The figures for 1907 were:
| Mule | Ring | |
| England (1909) | 39,800,000 | 7,900,000 |
| Germany | 5,740,000 | 3,722,000 |
| France | 4,122,000 | 2,481,000 |
| Austria | 2,307,000 | 1,277,000 |
| Italy | 1,015,000 | 1,852,000 |
| Russia | 1,031,000 | 1,320,000 |