First installment of a series by a Bradford Technical College chemistry and dyeing professor on how faults in textile cloth originate, with emphasis on those affecting the dyer. It argues for cooperation among spinner, manufacturer, dyer and finisher, and sets out a twelve-heading classification of defect causes. It then begins the first heading, defective raw material, covering wool (kemps, mixed wool qualities, skin wool, diseased-fleece stains, colored fibres, sulphide stains), silk, artificial silk and the start of cotton (dead cotton).