Hand spinning on these types of wheels, both hands are free (since the wheel is turned with a treadle, rather than by hand), so the spinner can use one hand to draft the fibres and the other to wet them. Modern powered spinning, originally done by water or steam power but now done by electricity, is vastly faster than hand-spinning. The spinning jenny, a multi-spool spinning wheel invented c. 1764 by James Hargreaves, dramatically reduced the amount of work needed to produce yarn of high consistency, with a single worker able to work eight or more spools at once. At roughly the
Ring spinning this was the standard spindle, and William Draper spent much of his time in court defending this patent. The new method was compared with the self-acting spinning mule which was developed by Richard Roberts using the more advanced engineering techniques in Manchester. The ring frame was reliable for coarser counts while Lancashire spun fine counts as well. The ring frame was heavier, requiring structural alteration in the mills and needed more power. These were not problems in the antebellum cotton industry in New England. It fulfilled New England's difficulty in finding skilled spinners: skilled spinners were plentiful in Lancashire. In