Flock

in the textile industry, finely powdered wool or cloth used as shoddy. Flock may be produced by grinding up old rags, or it may be the waste fiber from the shearing, brushing, and napping which woolen fabrics are subjected to in finishing. Flock is used largely in "fulling" cheap goods. It is spread on the wrong side of the cloth, and is worked into the meshes during the fulling process by the application of heat, moisture, and pressure. The weight of goods made from poor fiber is increased by the flock. Moreover, the cloth is actually made more bulky and warmer. The flock may loosen and drop out before the thread wears. An objectionable feature of the use of flock is this tendency to loosen and roll into little wads, which collect between the fabric and the lining of a garment. The lining of men's coats and overcoats is left loose at the bottom that the flock may drop out and not lodge in rolls. The use of flock to thicken cloth is by no means a modern invention. Latimer described it in a sermon delivered before Edward VI in the year 1549: If his cloth be xvii yeards long, he will set him on a rack, and stretch him out with ropes, and racke him till the sinews shrinke again, whiles he hath brought him to xviii yeards. When they have brought him to that perfection, they have a pretie feate to thicke him againe. He makes me a powder for it, and plaies the poticarie, they call it flock-powder, they do so incorporate it to the cloth, that it is wonderful to consider, truly a good invention. Oh, that so goodly wits should be so ill applied! They may wel deceive the people, but they cannot deceive God.