rapidly increased, the value of real estate multiplied, and within a
comparatively short time the United States became the leading cotton
country of the world. For many years much more cotton has been grown
in America than in all the other countries of the world combined; and
it is interesting to note that both the immense agricultural wealth of
America and the supply required for the cotton industry of England
flow directly from the invention of the cotton gin.

Attention was turned in 1876 to silk raising, and it was found that
all the conditions for producing cocoons of good quality and at low
cost were most favorable. It was, however, useless to raise cocoons
unless they could be utilized; in a word, it was seen that the country
needed silk-reeling machinery in 1876, as it had needed cotton-ginning
machinery in 1790. Under these conditions, Mr. Edward W. Serrell, Jr.,
an engineer of New York, undertook the study of the matter, and soon
became convinced that the production of such machinery was feasible.
He devoted his time to this work, and by 1880 had pushed his
investigations as far as was possible in a country where silk reeling
was not commercially carried on. He then went to France, where he has
since been incessantly engaged in the heart of the silk-reeling
district in perfecting, reducing to practice, and applying his
improvements and inventions. The success obtained was such that Mr.
Serrell has been enabled to interest many of the principal silk
producers of the Continent in his work, and a revolution in silk
reeling is being gradually brought about, for, strangely enough, he
found that the work which he had undertaken solely for America was of
equal importance for all silk-producing countries.

We have described the processes by which cocoons are ordinarily cooked
and brushed, these being the first processes of the filature. Instead