The Story of Silk

by Sara Ware Bassett

"Organzine, for example, is used for the warp of woven silk materials and is generally spun from the best quality raw silk, the threads being firm and strong. Tram, on the other hand, is silk of a second grade and is composed of a greater number of fibres. Many of the mills manufacturing woven silks prefer not to own throwing mills. Often their plants are in large cities where land is expensive and they must economize space; or the manufacturers estimate that they can get thread thrown for them cheaper than they can do it themselves. Anyway, they either send their own raw silk here to be thrown according to certain specifications, or they tell us to get the raw silk ourselves and throw it into the varieties required. If the firm sends its own silk it comes to the throwster in bulk with an order to throw a certain proportion of it into organzine of so many threads and twists; and the rest into tram of specified size, the price being computed by the pound."

"I understand."

"The throwsting of silk is a great test of the reeling. If the reeling has been well done, and the size of the strand is uniform, we have no trouble; but if the reeling has been poor, and the gum not thoroughly soaked out of the filament, the threads will snarl and break when they are put on the machines. Frequently there is great loss from poorly reeled cocoons, as I think I told you. And you must keep in mind that the cocoon gives us two kinds of silk thread—the reeled silk, which is of the best quality and is the continuous filament wound from the cocoon requiring no textile machinery to prepare its fibres; and the spun silk, which is made from the loose floss taken off before the cocoon is reeled, or comes from cocoons that were too imperfect to be wound off by the reelers. The latter variety must be treated much as are the fibres from the cotton plant, or those of sheep's wool. By that I mean that the short lengths have to be twisted and spun together before they can be woven on a loom. Do you see the difference?"

Pierre nodded.

"Reeled silk comes direct from the cocoon, leaving the filatures on spools, as you saw when you were here before. After that it is brought to these mills and wound over into hanks or skeins of a specified length—usually from 333 to 500 yards. The foreman told me that long ago they had to employ one person to attend to every reel; but now with modern machinery a single girl can watch twenty-four spools at once. One of the interesting things is that all the finest reels used in France, Italy, China, and Japan, come from America."

"But why don't the Americans reel their own raw silk, then, instead of importing it?"

"They have no cocoons. My father says they tried raising silk in America, but it was not successful. Mulberry trees will grow in some parts of the country, but there is no cheap labor to be had over there as here, and therefore it costs too much to feed and care for the silkworms, and reel the raw silk. It is far less expensive for American merchants to import the reeled silk for their looms. But they can beat us at making machinery, if not at raising cocoons."

Henri chuckled.

"My father says," he went on, "that the Americans did not perfect the reeling machines so much for our good as for their own. They used to get all kinds of silk thread from the different parts of Europe; and it could not be woven on their looms, which are finely adjusted and require material of uniform size and strength. So they perfected machinery for the preparation of silk thread, and practically insisted that if they were to buy of us in Europe the material ordered must be made as they wanted it. Most of the countries over here were glad enough to comply with their demands, for the Americans are not only enormous buyers, but their machines are much better than ours."

"Why couldn't they have cocoons shipped to them in bulk?" speculated Pierre.