MONEY IN CLOTH.
Capital in Cloth--How Uncle Sam Helps Linen-Makers--The Mistake of
Stocking Manufacturers--5,000,000 Sales if the Maker will get the
Right Thing--Better than Starch?--A Chance to Become a
Millionaire--Another Eli Whitney Wanted--Go South and Get
Rich--Secrets About Silk Manufacture--Startling Suggestions About a
New Process of Making Wool.
In the materials for making cloth and in the improvement of garments
there is an unlimited field for development and fortune. Here are a few
of the roads in which capital may profitably move:
813. LINEN MILLS.--The schedule of the new flax tariff was framed
especially to protect linen manufacturers by cheapening the imports of
the raw material so that they can compete with foreign rivals. Money put
into linen mills ought to reap a bountiful harvest during the next few
years.
814. TRIPLE KNEE STOCKING.--Why do not stocking makers give additional
strength to the parts which are the first to wear out? Five million boys
and girls in this country are wearing their knees through their
stockings and yet makers go on in the assumption that the quicker the
wear the better the trade. It remains for some sagacious manufacturer to
put a double or triple thickness on the knee, get a reputation for his
stocking, and command the market.
815. THE UNFRAYABLE COLLAR BAND.--Shirts, perfectly sound elsewhere, go
into the rag-bin because the collar band is frayed. The man who will
give us a substitute for starch, which does all the mischief, will earn
both gratitude and greenbacks.
816. THE RAMIE PLANT.--A few years ago the ramie plant was introduced
into this country from China. It was reported to yield three crops a
year, a total of 1,500 pounds to the acre, and that the fiber would
produce a cloth equal to cotton or even silk. Great things were
anticipated, but the hopes of the raisers were defeated by the lack of a
process for separating it into fine filaments. The slow hand press of
China makes it too expensive. Here is a chance for some brainy man to do
for the ramie plant what Eli Whitney did for the cotton, reaping even a
larger fortune than he because of the present greater demand for cloth.
817. COTTON MILLS IN THE SOUTH.--About 9,000,000 persons in the United
States and England depend for their livelihood on the cotton trade.
Until recently New England had a monopoly of the cotton manufacture in
the United States, but of late it has been ascertained that, owing to
the cheaper cost of iron and fuel, the business can be carried on more
advantageously in the South. The coal and iron in the mountains and the
proximity to the raw product will cause New England soon to be distanced
in this important enterprise. For those who seek cotton manufacture for
a livelihood or for a competence, and especially for those who are
beginning the business, the northern parts of Georgia and Alabama
present unrivaled opportunities for the carrying on of that industry;
and to such we would say, paraphrasing Horace Greeley’s advice to the
young, “Go South, young man.”
818. ARTIFICIAL SILK.--The man who can invent or discover a substance
which has the glossy luster and wear of silk so as to counterfeit the
real article can name his own price. Four processes have recently been
patented, but the results are a fiber too coarse, too stiff, too weak,
or too expensive. The Chardonnet process makes a quality at a cost of
$1.23 a pound, and it sells at $2.70 a pound, a very good profit if only
it was enough like real silk to command the market. Put on your
thinking-caps, cloth manufacturers, and obtain the rich prize which is
already almost within your grasp.
819. MINERAL WOOL.--Here is something new. Experiments have proved that
rocks, or at least certain kinds of them, can be made into wool. The
wool is made from sandstone, and from the waste slag of furnaces.
“Mineral wool” is already being used for packing and fireproofing; but
the inexhaustible field for the industry in the millions of tons of
serviceable rocks, and the unforeseen possibilities in the use of the
“new wool,” make the subject a startling one and well worth the
consideration of money-makers.
820. LEATHER SUBSTITUTE.--The high price of leather and its fluctuation
in price have caused many substitutes to be devised, but thus far they
have been inferior in quality, and will not stand the test of rough
usage and exposure to heat. Imitation leather has always been made of
two pieces of cloth pasted together, which are bound to separate or
blister. Here is a secret worth a fortune. A single thickness of either
drill or duck, with a heavy surface coating, will stand every test that
leather can endure, and is every way as good, and can be produced at
one-third the cost.