Seduced by apparent cheapness, many of the new mills bought machinery which the New England mills had discarded for better patterns, or because of a change of product.

Operatives had to be drawn from the farms and needed to be trained not only to work in the mills but also to habits of regularity and punctuality.

The New England overseers who were imported for this purpose sometimes failed in dealing with these new recruits to industrialism because of inability to make due allowance for their limitations.

Accustomed to the truck system in agriculture, the managers often paid wages in scrip always good for supplies at the company store but redeemable in cash only at infrequent intervals.

The operatives therefore sometimes found that they had exchanged one sort of economic dependence for another.