Moths

Moths can be prevented and exterminated by the use of benzine. A spray of some sort should be used and great care exercised, on account of the inflammable character of the liquid.

Sprouting

When the surface of a carpet is pulled, say by a tack in some one's shoe, the strands of yarn are pulled to the surface and the long ends form what is known as a case of "sprouting." The finer the quality of yarn the more liable it is to occur, as the fine quality is soft and easily broken. The claw of a dog or cat, a nail in a shoe, a broken caster, or even hard sweeping with a stiff broom may cause "sprouting," and is not due in any way to the quality of the carpet.

Smyrna Carpets

The Smyrna rug or carpet has been one of the best domestic grades known. It is practically obsolete, however, as the other grades of carpetings are taking its place. Competition, in a sense, has been the cause of its extermination, as it was imitated, in a manner, by a jute rug that has very much the same appearance, but is much lower in price.

In the Smyrna carpets, the weft is dyed woolen yarn with a cotton warp, and has two faces owing to the wool yarn being on two sides.

Ingrain Carpets

Most all carpets that are made on an ingrain loom are called ingrain carpets, and all materials are dyed before being woven.

The most important ingrain carpets are: "Extra super," "cotton chain," and "union."

The "extra super" is the most expensive and has an all-wool filling and an all-worsted or wool chain. The "cotton chain" carpet is the same, except the chain is cotton or lisle. The "union" carpet is one in which the filling and chain are cotton.

The "pro-Brussels" is another grade that ranks in price with the "extra super" carpet and differs from it only in the process of weaving as it has a heavier filling and a chain of jute.

The "granite" carpet is a low-priced carpet with a cotton filling and a part jute chain.

All grades of ingrain carpets will come under one of these heads, although each mill may put on its own make of carpet a particular copyrighted name, and sometimes a fancy name on a carpet will help much toward the sale of it, which makes it very important to know a good carpet when it is seen.

By unraveling the ends of carpets one can detect an all-wool carpet from a cotton filled one. The chain also can be examined.

Points Of Service

As before noted, a carpet with the strongest chain will wear longest; for that reason, the lisle or cotton chain carpet will give better service, but colors will not hold in a cotton chain carpet as well as in one of wool chain. An ingrain carpet a yard wide should have about ten hundred and eighty chain ends. They will vary from that down to seven or eight hundred. As stated before an all-wool carpet advertised at a very low price means nothing unless the quality is mentioned. A carpet with but seven hundred chain ends, all wool, would sell for much less than one with ten hundred and eighty ends. These things must be taken into consideration when comparing prices.

It will be found that a wool or wool-filled carpet with the most white in it will contain more pure wool than the dark patterns. The carpets with dark patterns sometimes contain a lot of animal hair, which is mixed in and sold for all wool.

An ingrain carpet should he thoroughly cleansed from oil. This cleansing of the yarn is the result of a perfect scouring process before it is woven at the mill. Many oily carpets are sold at a low price, but will give poor satisfaction, as they will hold the dirt and dust. However, those containing oil can, by close examination, be easily detected.