we have used has helped us at all, and I am inclined to think that under ordinary circumstances starch and water is as good as anything, with perhaps a little tallow. I have tried glue, putting in a pound or two of glue; and, as I said, we all thought we derived some benefit from it for a while, but after a while we found no difference, and abandoned it.

Mr. MESSENGER. Does Mr. KNIGHT continue boiling his size in the size-box while it is running after boiling two hours?

Mr. KNIGHT. Yes, boil all the time; keep it hot.

QUESTION. Do you use any acid or vitriol to cut the tallow or impregnate the yarn?

Mr. KNIGHT. No, sir.

QUESTION. You do not consider it necessary?

Mr. KNIGHT. No, sir.

We keep it agitated all the while

that it is in the kettle while the sizing is being cooked, and after that it is put into the size-box over the boiler, where the boiling continues the agitation; and we use it there.

A MEMBER. My experience has been very much like that of Mr. KNIGHT. At first our boiler boiled the starch for an hour and a half, until that blue appearance came that he speaks of. Some gentlemen have spoken of tallow and dressine. I am using what I have not heard mentioned, - whalesfoot, and also a small quantity of turpentine in each kettle, because I got the impression, whether right or not, that it kept the yarn from sticking on the cylinder, and made it easier to penetrate. I may possibly be wrong, but with me it appeared to be a good thing. I thought I got better results with it than I did without it; but I think the secret of the thing is in boiling it a proper length of time, until that blue appearance comes into it.

A MEMBER. I used unfermented size. The difference in the product was not very much, but there was in the way the goods were handled, and in relation to the condition of the harness, and the looms did not run as well with unfermented as with fermented.

The PRESIDENT. Can you tell how much flyings you get from the loom, and the product of the loom with unfermented sizing? Mr. I think better results come from fermented sizing than from unfermented. It occurred to me that one point is perhaps established in reference to the matter by the remarks that have been brought out, and that was this, that fermented size does not need to be boiled as much as unfermented, for the boiling of the sizing takes the place of the fermentation. That is a point worth knowing, as Mr. KNIGHT has said; but in the experiments I tried I ran one set of looms on fermented size and the other on unfermented, and I boiled them the same time. Certainly there was a decided difference in that respect; for the harnesses would be all clogged up with the unfermented, while they were running perfectly clear with the fermented. I do not know that I have answered your question now, Mr. President. I could not tell the difference in the flyings.

The PRESIDENT. I wanted to get a statement, if I could, of the amount of flyings made per loom, and the product per loom. We are producing about thirty-five pounds of cloth per loom of the various kinds of cloth, and make less than four ounces of flying per week per loom, using unfermented potato starch, with no dressine whatever.

it

A gentleman then asked the President in reference to the members obtaining a copy of Mr. SHELDON's paper. The President stated that it was in the hands of the printer, and it had been expected that it would be read at the meeting; would appear in the report of the proceedings of this Mr. E. S. DRAPER. I move you, Mr. President extend a vote of thanks to Colonel FRANCIS and M for their papers which have been read here to-day. we have all been very much interested. Carried.

Upon motion of Mr. MCARTHUR, it was vote member have a copy of the paper of Mr. SHELDO published in the report.

Adjourned.

POWER AND SPEED IN COTTON MILLS.

BY FRANK P. SHELDON, PROVIDENCE, R. I.

As your secretary remarked in his letter inviting me to present a paper upon the above subject, power and speed are certainly matters of vital importance in cotton manufacturing, and would seem to offer an ample field for statement and discussion. And yet I cannot pretend to be able to present to a body of practical manufacturers like this one anything in the shape of information or novelty, especially in a paper prepared, as this must be, in a broken manner, in the midst of the exacting demands of business, and therefore compelled to rely for material entirely upon such data as I have obtained in the regular course of my work.

In looking over some of my older notes, it has occurred to me that it might be interesting to take a glance in retrospection at the subject of power, speed and production, and make some comparisons between our modern mills and those of a few years ago, and remind ourselves of the great changes that have transpired in these respects within two decades. It may not be instructive, but may afford some light recreation and professional satisfaction at the results which have been accomplished by the ingenuity of New England inventors, and the untiring zeal and application which are indisputably the characteristics of the New England cotton manufacturer.

In the close competition demanded in cotton manufacturing to-day, the test question applied to everything is, Will it pay? There is one exception to this rule, however: when it is a

question of larger product of yarn by higher speed at the expense of more power, the manufacturer does not stop to ask, What will it cost? In relative importance for economy of production, speed easily outranks power.

The vital point of importance in regard to power is not, as it is in the labor item, to get along with the least possible amount and at the lowest possible cost. The main thing is to have the power and speed, with absolute certainty and in ample quantity, every minute and hour and day of the year. Probably this truism has been most emphatically appreciated during the past dry season by those manufacturers who have water-power mills with insufficient or no auxiliary steam power; and I venture to say that there are not a few of these who, looking ruefully at the weekly reports of diminished product and consequent increased cost, have felt that if they could only have the power, they would not ask whether it took 1.5 pounds or 5.1 pounds of coal per horse-power to get it.

Every manufacturer knows very well that in the cost of making cotton cloth the cost of the power is the least important of all the items. Labor ranks first, interest and depreciation second, supplies third and power fourth. For economical production, therefore, it is the correct principle to pay the greater attention to the reduction of the three larger items, even though it involves the increase of the smaller one. Increase of speed of spindles is by far the most effectual factor in obtaining this result; and hence it is that any increase of speed that can be obtained without other disadvantages is in the line of economy, regardless of the increased cost of power it may involve. The items of labor and interest and depreciation together are from five to eight times as large as the power item in the best steam mill. The limit to speed, therefore, will not be in the cost of power, but in the capacity of the machines to do good work without increased waste, or excessive wear and tear whil begin to count too heavily in the item of depreciation observations apply of course to the spinning depar

High speed in the card-room is of no benefit, and in the weaveroom it may be a debatable point in some mills.

As a matter of economy in manufacturing, therefore, it follows that the first consideration in the motive power of a cotton mill should be absolute reliability and certainty of continuous operation at full speed, rather than a fine economy of fuel. We want both if possible, but must have the first at any cost; and hence it may be laid down as a principle, that any improvement in the direction of saving fuel, that may involve any possibility of detracting from the first point, is to be rejected without hesitation. In this connection, a field for discussion may possibly suggest itself as to the advisability of adopting triple and quadruple compound steam-engines for cotton mills, with steam pressure of one hundred and sixty to two hundred pounds, which they demand in order to secure the economy of fuel which is of course their only recommendation. Such steam-plants for ships are to be advocated upon entirely different grounds than apply in a cotton-mill plant, and are operated under entirely different conditions. I will not go into this matter now, however, but am free to say that in my opinion there is ground for reasonable doubt upon this point when everything is taken into consideration, and it may be a question whether the net results of the operation of some such plants which have been installed will not ultimately be disappointing.

Following the tendency of the engineer to put everything into tabulated form, I have thought it might be interesting to make up a little table which would show at a glance the relative importance of power and speed in a cotton mill, as matters of economy of production. For convenience, I will take for all calculations in this paper the print cloth mill, because of its simplicity and uniformity of product. For the unit of comparison I have used the spindle rather than the pound of product, because the cost of operating a given number of spindles does not vary materially for different numbers of yarn,