Willowing was the breaking up of raw cotton and removing impurities. Willowing machines first began to be used at the end of the 18th century. The machine contained a large drum filled with iron spikes, which loosened and separated the fibres, and a powerful fan which blew away the dust and other impurities through a large pipe. The scrutcher was added to the willowing machine in 1797. In his book The History of the Cotton Manufacture (1835), Edward Baines claims that the scrutcher was invented by a man working in Glasgow called Snodgrass. The scrutcher removed impurities from the willowed cotton by beating it with rapidly revolving metallic blades. James Kennedy, a factory owner in Manchester, first began using the strutcher in 1808.