With the coming of the jenny and the mule the circumstances of the two latter classes were changed, as without extra outlay of capital more cloth could be produced by their looms, and consequently they derived great benefit from the inventions. Indeed, Gaskell asserts that a material improvement had been gradually taking place in their position during the half-century preceding the application of steam-power to weaving,[431] not so much because of increased payment for their labour, as because of a constantly increasing supply of yarn, which enabled them to turn out a greater and more regular quantity of cloth.[432] [Footnote 431: He gives 1806 as the date of the introduction of power looms. It was about this time that, through the efforts of Horrocks, Johnson and Radcliffe, they became practicable. In February, 1807, Robert Owen wrote to M‘Connel and Kennedy inquiring about “the improvements presently in progress in weaving by power.”] [Footnote 432: _Ibid._, pp. 34, 38.] One of the first effects of the improvement was to cause the superior class of artisans to abandon their agricultural activities, owing to the fact that their labour with the loom had become so much more profitable. Gaskell fully recognised this material advance, but considered that it was gained at the expense of a lowered status; previously the members of this class had been on a level with the yeoman; by the change they had become labourers.[433] The effect upon the inferior class of artisans was that they were at once elevated to a position of equality with the superior class, and though Gaskell recognised that the amalgamation raised their general character as a body, and gave them community of interest and feeling, the change did not favourably impress him.[434] Whatever else Gaskell may have been, he was certainly not a strong believer in the elimination of class distinctions. [Footnote 433: _Manufacturing Population_, pp. 35, 39.] [Footnote 434: _Ibid._, pp. 37-38.] But the effects of these developments in industry extended to the yeomen. Previously, although the members of this class had not been noted for their efficiency in farming, they had been able to maintain their position owing to the still less efficiency of the farmer-manufacturers who had served them as a bulwark, and, as the latter disappeared from agriculture, and as new methods and a new type of cultivator appeared, the yeomen lost the markets they had previously supplied.