A buttonhole does not strike the average person as a thing of any importance whatever. The needlewoman, however, who has to patiently stitch around and form the buttonholes, knows differently, and when this needlewoman, working in the great shirt factories and shoe factories, is confronted with the many millions of buttonholes in collars, cuffs, shirts and shoes, the great amount of this painstaking and nerve destroying labor becomes appalling. For cheapening the cost of buttonholes, and reducing the hand labor, various buttonhole machines and attachments to sewing machines have been devised. Patents Nos. 36,616 and 36,617, to Humphrey, Oct. 7, 1862, covered one of the earliest forms, but the Reece buttonhole machine, which is specially devised for the work, is one of the most modern and successful. It was patented April 26, 1881, Sept. 21, 1886, and Aug. 20, 1895. These machines mark an important departure, which consists in working the buttonhole by moving the stitch forming mechanism about the buttonhole, instead of moving the fabric. An illustration of the machine is given in Fig. 148. Upon this machine 10,010 button holes have been made in nine hours and fifty minutes. The machine first cuts the buttonhole, then transfers it to the stitching devices, which stitch and bar the buttonhole, finishing it entirely in an automatic manner. The saving involved to the manufacturer by this machine over the hand method is several hundred per cent., but the relief to the needlewoman is of far greater consequence. [Illustration: FIG. 148.--REECE BUTTONHOLE MACHINE.] Many striking applications of the sewing machine to various kinds of work have been made. A recent one is the automatic power carpet sewing machine, made and sold by the Singer Manufacturing Company. It was patented by E. B. Allen in 1894. This machine in general appearance resembles a miniature elevated railroad. It consists of an elevated track about thirty-six feet long, sustained every three or four feet upon standards, and having clamping jaws, which hold together the upper edges of the two lengths of carpet to be sewed together. A compact little stitching apparatus, not larger than a tea-pot, is actuated by an endless belt from an electric motor at one end. The little machine runs along and stitches together the upper edges of the suspended carpet lengths, and as it crawls along at its work, it strikingly reminds one of the movements of a squirrel along the top of a rail fence. This machine will sew five yards of seam every minute, fastening together evenly and strongly ten yards of carpet, and entirely dispensing with all hand labor in this roughest and most trying of all fabrics.