The Crofters and Their Cloth.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVII, Issue 22, 1 December 1906, Page 30

The Crofters and Their Cloth.

HOW AND WHERE HARRIS TV' '■IDS ARE MADE. If you have never worn a garment made of Harris tweed, you have missed a luxury. No other cloth can compare with it for comfort. It is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It is porous, and allows the body’ to breathe while keeping the wearer warm. Being made entirely from wool, the wearer of Harris tweed is proof against chills, while the soft, loose texture prevents the bftly fitnn getting stifled and hot. You can wear the same clothes summer and winter with the utmost comfort. For country wear Harris tweed cannot be matched, and it is worn by most gentlemen, and, notwithstanding the competition from machine and factory-made doth, the tweed is still able to hold its own. I It is well that it does, for the making of the tweed is the life history' of many of the families in the Highlands and the islands around. • ... > The popularity of the tweed means prosperity for the crofters, and a laek of purchasers means simple starvation. On the Islands of Harris and Lewis there is little alternative.' The land is barren and rocky, the sun seldom smiles on the face of the country. The men live on the sea. but when they' are unable to go fishing through stress of weather, times would be hard indeed were it' not for the “grist brought to the mill” by the womenfolk and their tweed making. There’is one name arid one person who is adored by the crofter folk.' The Duchess of Sutherland has extended a protecting wing to the inhabitants of the bleak islands, arid through her energy has beeW established the Scottish Home Industries Association. The Duchess uses her influence, assisted by her aristocratic friends, to induce the wealthy' of the land to buy Harris tweed. The association provides when necessary wool for the crofters to work with, and often the food to keep the workers while' they are making the tweed. The association has opened depots at Tarbert in Harris, Stornoway in Lewis, and at Golspie in Sutherland, for the collection of the cottage-made Harris tweed. "• - ' Primitive indeed are the homes of the workers. Little houses—they might al- . most be called huts—built of loose stones, with a thatched roof often weighed down with stones to prevent an exceptionally heavy wind from removing the roof bodily. In most of the cottages there are no chimneys, the smoke from, the peat fires finding its way out through the windows, which are little more than loopholes. or through the open door. Seventy-five per cent of the homes contain spinning-wheels and primitive handlooms, with .which the cloth is made. The whole process of turning crude wool, as it is taken froni the backs of the sheep, into soft, durable tweed is done in these little cottages. The making yf the tweed is an interesting process, and in the first instance the wool is cleaned and carded — that is, drawn out by a hand tool somewhat resembling a wire brush, so as to lay all the fibres one way.. The next step is to dye the carded wool and spin' it. into yarn. The yarn is next worked bn the hand-loom and the tweed made, after which it is felted and shrunk. The felting is to even .the. texture of the cloth, and it is largely owing to this that the softness so noticeable in the tweed is due. They call this process “wauking.” probably, because the lassies used to do the. felting with their feet, All the material and labour is a home product, even to the dyes, which used to lie entirely made front various plants which are native to the soil, but iu some few instances, imported dyes are now used. •■;’.:■• - The men, from laek of opportunity for enterprise, have grown Jethargic, and if they are not engaged in fishing they tend little plots of cultivated land called lazyl>eds which lie on the rocky hillsides. The women are aways working never idle; and besides the making of Harris tweed.

they work wool in other ways, such M ; knitting. About £25,000 worth of this home- » spun cloth is turned out annrialty. and if. f it is of nee?ssity a little dearer than the cheap products of the factories, still it ‘ far excels them in warmth and durability, and the Duchess of Sutherland has been so far successful in .defending this home industry from being pushed out of the market by the products of the factories. She has appealed to the rich to wear Harris tweed, and they have responded in such a way that the crofter# still find a fair share of work. iVliat the extinction of the trade would mean, those alone know who are conversant with the life of the crofters, and are familiar with the faet that they rely on the home spinning to such an extent that any checking of it spells ruin. Industrious as they may be, the women can turn their hands to nothing else, for there is nothing else possible on the bleak and barren country.