Mr. BROWN. I think, Mr. President, there must be several men here who have had quite an experience with various sizings, and things, the names of which I cannot give, for I do not know how many have been in to see me and told me of places where they have used them with great success; but I have never talked with any agent who has used it. If there is anything in the market, I would like to get it. I tried a cask, and did not see that it did me any harm.

Mr. WATTLES. Mr. BROWN remarks that he tried a cask, and it did not do him any harm. I will say if a person who has not tried dressine will try it, he will find if it does not do him any good it won't do any harm. I have used more perhaps than any man in New England. I have great faith in it, and believe it to be a good thing.

Mr. BROWN. That is not the question, Mr. WATTLES; but you take and put that in, so you won't have to use any steam. You might use it in the winter, but what would be the effect in dog-days?

Mr. WATTLES. I think you want to use more of it in winter than in summer.

Mr. BROWN. We are making some sateens. Wouldn't it be a dangerous thing to use it there?

Mr. WATTLES. No, sir. There is something to put into it to prevent any moulding or mildew.

The PRESIDENT. Antiseptic?

Mr. WATTLES. Yes, sir. And, in proof of that, there are a good many men here who have discovered what that antiseptic is, and have used it right along.

The PRESIDENT. Mr. MESSENGER has made a pertinent inquiry. If any member has received any benefit from any of these sizing compounds, there is a good opportunity to state it.

Mr. W. J. KENT. Mr. President, I have had quite an extensive experience in the use of sizing compounds; and, as we have two hundred varieties of goods, it becomes necessary a great many times that we should look after them pretty

closely; and we make cotton cloth all the way from twenty-four picks to the inch up to two hundred and fifty. Now, I have found out this one thing, that the less you use of these compounds the better. (Laughter.) Notwithstanding that, Mr. WATTLES has made some very good experiments in our mill, and we are now using his compound; but it makes all the difference in the world what kind of goods you want it for. Mr. BROWN asks this question of Mr. MESSENGER. Now, you take our fine goods, where we use sixty warp and ninety filling, or about those numbers, and we don't want any of it. We use simply tallow and starch and water; the slashertender had an idea that he must put in a little turpentine, but it does not amount to that (snapping his fingers). I know there is a great deal of prejudice to be overcome in this sizing business, as Mr. WATTLES well knows. We have had one compound which we consider very good. Mr. WATTLES puts in

(Renewed

another compound, and he has the barrels all labelled, and all put up in the same manner. My man thinks to-day he is using the other kind when he is using Mr. WATTLES'. laughter.) I asked him the other day to take me where Mr. WATTLES' compound was. He took me there and said, "There is the Victoria, and this is Mr. WATTLES'." I have not put any Victoria in the sizing for several months; but I do not propose to inform the overseers. But I cannot agree with Mr. WATTLES on this one point; and that is, we want the humidity of the atmosphere in the room just the same as we would if we did not use it. Our temperature is generally about eighty-seven and our humidity ranges about eighty. Then we get the best results.

Mr. MESSENGER. I am very much interested in this discussion, because I am just passing through some experiments in this line. I will say, I tried dressine in our mills. As Mr. BROWN says, we found it did not do us any harm. Another man sent a preparation to put in our sizing, and, in fact, we have two or three kinds. He quoted a good many mills that use it (I am not speaking of Mr. WATTLES' compound), and I

suggested they were all coarser mills. Yesterday my overseer called my attention to the fact that, while the yarn seemed to be strong, the warp did not break, and it ran well; at the same time the picks seemed to go in very hard, and the yarns felt like ropes. I had to take both hands to the rim-wheel to turn the loom over the pick. There was a marked difference between it and our regular-sized warps. It looks as though that is something we do not want. Notwithstanding it seemed to make the yarn feel very strong, it was not smooth; you could not put the picks in without straining the cloth up very tight indeed, to the extent that we narrowed down the width. of the goods.

Mr. KENT. I should advise the manufacturers here present, before they go into any of those things, to look at the cost. We got into trouble once.

The PRESIDENT. The increased amount of power which Mr. MESSENGER states is something which I never thought of before.

Mr. MESSENGER. I will say that the warps we slashed with the dressine did not feel like that; we did not notice anything of the kind, but they seemed as smooth as our regular size, but with this particular preparation, it was remarkable, to my mind.

A MEMBER. If Mr. KNIGHT is present, from what I have heard of him I think he has some facts in the case. I am told that in one corporation they used these various ingredients, in the Amory perhaps; and then in another, the Linden, they use simply starch and tallow; and, while they may cook it perhaps a little differently, they do not discover any very material advantage of one over the other. I do not know whether Mr. KNIGHT is in the room or not, but if he is, I think he can give us some facts right to the point.

Mr. A. F. KNIGHT. Mr. President, I did not come here to give any information upon the subject of sizing. I cannot give anything in detail, because I am not prepared to do so, but I think that I can coincide with some of the things that

Mr. KENT has said; that perhaps if you were to make the goods out of the fine yarns you will find that you do not need much of anything except tallow and starch and water. My personal opinion is that it makes a good deal of difference how you prepare your size. If you are using corn-starch, as we do, although a good many of you think it is absolutely necessary to have potato starch, but we use it because it is cheaper, I have found we do not use any more of the corn-starch than we do of the potato starch, although it costs a good deal less money. We use it in the Amory Mill, where we have sixteen. hundred looms, and two slashers prepare the warps for sixteen hundred looms. We use some dressine, perhaps not near as much as Mr. WATTLES thinks we do. (Laughter.) We do one thing which we think amounts to a good deal. We boil our sizing a long time, I won't tell you how long, but we boil it a good while. You need not be afraid of boiling it too long. You will have to put in a little more starch to begin with; but, if you keep account of the number of pieces of goods you size, you will find it does not take so much starch to size a cut of yarn after boiling it a long time as it does when you do not boil it a great while. Mr. THOMAS can tell you something about that. As I said, we used dressine in the Amory Mill. In the Langdon Mill we do not use anything except a little tallow, water and corn-starch. We have goods similar to those Mr. KENT spoke of, heavy goods. The filling is quite heavy and the warp not so very heavy. They are hard goods to weave, and we have questioned whether or no we would be benefited by using dressine, and have thought that we would put it in, but have not yet come to it; and we get about as good results from the looms in one case as we do in the other. I am of the opinion that we can get along if we do not put in anything except starch and water. There are times, as you all know, when the sizing will foam; and our experience has shown us that a little turpentine dropped in the size-box of the slasher will stop it. I have found a little kerosene will stop it.

We do the slashing for sixteen
We do not think we could

We run our slashers very fast. hundred looms on two slashers. afford to have another slasher, and we can get along very comfortably with two. But when some of these fellows that have been to see Mr. BROWN come up to see us, and go into the mill with their sizing compounds and try to do our work by putting in it two-thirds the amount of starch, and only boiling the sizing fifteen or twenty minutes, or bringing it up to a boil without boiling it a long time, they find they have difficulty in drying the yarn, and we have to slow down the slasher. In our mill, before I had anything to do with it, we called a sizing man there, and he spoiled a lot of yarn; the yarn mildewed, because he run it on the beams, wet. He said he would pay for it, but never did. (Laughter.) That is all I have to say. The PRESIDENT. Can you tell us how many pounds of yarn are used to a pound of starch in the goods you speak of?

Mr. WATTLES. I cannot tell you. We put on about four or five per cent. of sizing. When Mr. WINDSOR was running the mill, he wanted to know of me if I could get him something to put in the size that would allow him to put in another hundred looms without putting in another slasher. After some experiments, we came upon the method that has been used there ever since, and they have been adding three or four hundred extra looms, and have not put in another slasher.

Mr. KNIGHT. While I think generally dressine is a very good thing, we are going to put in another hundred looms, and I do not think it is necessary to continue the use of the dressine to dry the yarn. I think that the merit of dressine perhaps is that they have some sort of acid in it; and I know it keeps the rolls clean, and also keeps the cylinders clean. Then they put in something that has a tendency to dry the yarn, but I do not think it is absolutely necessary we should have it.

A MEMBER. Mr. Chairman, a gentleman came to me a short time ago about sizing called slashine, and he said that most of the mills in Fall River and New Bedford were using it with good success. I would like to hear from them.