3. One should not expect to get bargains in silk. Cheap silk will not wear. It is better to wear some other material. Is the material made of reeled silk or of spun silk? You have learned the difference. Articles made of reeled silk are more expensive. 4. Silk is sometimes adulterated with cotton or artificial silk and sold for all silk. We shall learn some tests in our next lesson so we may discover too. Miss James talked over all these points with the Pleasant Valley girls and showed them some good and bad materials. The girls decided to be on the lookout for these things. Will you? EXERCISES AND PROBLEMS 1. Bring to school garments or materials which have not worn well. Try to find out why. Your teacher will help. 2. Write a composition about things to think about in purchasing a new winter suit ready-made. If you must buy from a catalogue, can you judge about the wearing qualities? LESSON 6 LEARNING TO USE SOME SIMPLE TEXTILE TESTS Miss James and the girls of Pleasant Valley tried some simple tests for materials. Perhaps you would like to try them too? The Pleasant Valley girls became so interested in Miss Travers' talk about textiles and how difficult it is to buy intelligently that they decided to learn to judge materials and to study about adulterations. =How are clothing materials adulterated?= Miss James told the girls that there are a number of ways of adulterating materials, and that most women shoppers are so indifferent that manufacturers have been able to adulterate the materials of everyday use. This increases the cost of living, for materials do not wear so long. Miss James says that textiles should be labeled so we may know what we are buying. Some kind of adulterations are honest if the goods are so marked; but, when sold for something they are not, the buyers are fooled. The tests help one to know whether materials are adulterated or not. Let us learn first some of the methods generally used in adulterating, and then some of the simple tests. _Weighting_ is one method of adulterating. This means that something else has been used beside the material. In cotton and linen material, sizing or starch is pressed in with the rolling in finishing. After washing, this material will be found to be very open in mesh instead of smooth. Notice some of the smooth linen table cloths before they are laundered. Afterwards you will notice they look quite coarse and have lost their smoothness. Sometimes glue or clay or gums are used instead of starch.