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I do not hesitate to predict that the time will come within a few years, when the value of the twelve hundred pounds of seed, belonging to a bale of cotton of the average weight, will be half that of the bale, if it is not more nearly up to the full value of the bale; and, in the intelligence that will direct these new enterprises, you will gain a better treatment of the cotton and the cotton-fibre, that will result in benefit to this country as compared to the countries on the other side of the water.

The next subject, which interests you directly as cottonspinners, we bring forward as underwriters. You are aware that in our mill insurance company we preach one-story mills. I am at liberty to bring before you a picture of a one-story factory, for which our Mr. William H. H. Whiting made the plans less than two years ago. It covers forty-five thousand feet of floor surface. It was built at a cost of about half a dollar a square foot. It is a story and a half practically; and under the floor, at every eight feet each way, is a pier. You therefore have no spring to the floor whatever, but you have the elasticity of timber under the support of your machinery. It is all shafted from below. It has monitor roofs, and the best of light. It has been in use during the last winter, with looms that were removed from the Renfrew mill. The same looms, to a considerable extent, are upon that floor, that were in the other factory of the ordinary construction on the second floors. The result of the change is this, that the saving in gas, in running a thousand gingham-looms, requiring a large proportion of gas, as you are aware, has paid the interest on the cost of that building. There has not been the slightest difficulty in keeping it warm, with five rows of inch and a quarter pipe. On the morning of the night when the thermometer was fourteen degrees below zero, the thermometer in the mill was at sixty, the heat having been let on at midnight. The looms are run on that floor twelve per cent faster than they were run in the old mill; and it is proposed to build another mill of the same construction as this, next summer, and they will never again, if they have room, build a mill above one story high.

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I will, with your leave, present for publication in the report the statistics of the yarn exports of Great Britain. The yarn export of Great Britain is gaining, while the goods export is

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losing. It is a simpler and less costly occupation than that of weaving, and one in which we ought to engage, but of which we as yet know but little. The time has not yet arrived, but the time will come, when we shall share in that yarn export, which constitutes one-fourth part in value of the exports of cotton-stuff from Great Britain.

I desire to call your attention next to these samples of wool, that have been treated in the course of our investigation of oils with naphtha. The time does not suffice to give the details, but they are very curious, of the differences in the treatment of wools from different regions; and there is here a chance for saving to a very great amount. Twenty per cent of the weight of the wool used in New England, and elsewhere in this country, consists of grease or oil, of a character more nearly like sperm oil in some of its peculiarities than any other. By successive methods, not apparently difficult, but which remain to be tested on a large scale, wools have been treated with naphthas, bringing out from the product a perfectly pure and very peculiar oil, perhaps the best for curing leather that has been found. There is a side of leather that has been cured with that oil. The currier stated that he had never had any oil better, if he had ever had any equal to it. That grease is now polluting all our rivers, and going to waste, to the extent of forty million pounds a year. The wool, after being treated in this manner, is simply washed in warm water, and brought to the condition of these samples. Here are samples of seven different kinds of wool, and I have a table of the results. There is a curious scientific value in this, and there must, in the nature of things, be an economic value, after it has been followed out to its conclusion on the basis of the trials that have been made in the laboratory. And this, gentlemen, is mainly woman's work, the work of the skilful chemist who is teaching the woman's department of chemistry in the laboratory of this Institute.

The next subject, which I think may interest you, is the manufacture of rope from cotton and tar, of which I have some samples, made by Mr. Thomas Dunham. This rope will float, and not sink, and will, therefore, be of great value, if there are no outs about the process. I fear that Mr. Dunham has left the room; but I told him I would bring the matter before the Association as a new and very interesting product of cotton.

In connection with the one-story mill, a question of flooring, and the method of attachment of machinery, has arisen. On an inspection of a mill in Philadelphia - Mr. Thomas Dolan's mill- I found the basement concreted with a concrete that had been in the basement, used as a cloth-room, for three years. In that cloth-room his cases of heavy goods were loaded upon trucks, with iron wheels about an inch and a half in width; and those heavily-loaded iron trucks had been run over that concrete for three years, and his horses had been stamping on it in the stable for three years, and there was not a scratch to be seen. In this concrete, I understand, there is some asphaltum, which is a non-conductor of heat. It is, therefore, not liable to the difficulty of making cold feet.

The question of the right placing of machinery has been considered, and this device, which is Mr. William H. H. Whiting's, has been drawn, in case you should want to build a onestory mill with a concrete floor, when we get that start for which we have been so long waiting. There is a device of an iron rail in two parts, to be set in the concrete, with a pin to be dropped through the opening, a wooden block to be interposed between the iron rail and the foot of the machine, whatever it may be, and then set with a bolt and leather washer, so that there will be no contact of iron with iron, but there will be the elasticity of wood and leather interposed between the solid or rigid floor and the machine itself.

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The last subject, to which I have to ask your attention, is a new watch-clock. There are several watch-clocks of great merit, all of which are satisfactory to us. But here is a watchclock that we think your attention may well be called to. The wires from the several points are to be wound in one cable. We will suppose a watch-clock of eight stations: the eight wires are wound in one cable, so that there can be no method of connecting the wire in one room with the others, and thereby of sounding all the signals from a single point; but each signal-station must be visited, in order that it may be sounded; and then, if the watchman attempts to tamper with the clock, the moment he opens the door the fact is recorded that he has been to the clock, has opened the door, and has tried to tamper with it, and the exact hour is given at which he tried to do it. So that the clock not only protects the mill,

but protects itself, and is extremely simple in its adjustment. The name of the promotor of that clock is Mr. Adams, who is here to explain it to you, if you desire any explanation.

Mr. BARKER. About what is the cost of the clock and appliances?

Mr. ADAMS. We claim that it is the cheapest clock in the market. It is a very simple contrivance, and will not get out of order in any way. I have over four hundred statements from the best commercial houses in the city of Boston, representing forty millions of property, that are visited every night by our patrol. The cost is $125 for eight stations, including putting up and every thing, and $200 for sixteen stations. It can be maintained for five dollars a year.

Mr. MOREHEAD. For the purpose of answering the inquiry of Mr. Atkinson as to the starch-producing properties of the sweet potato, I have here papers from, and speak by authority of, Col. L. L. Polk, commissioner of agriculture, and Professor A. L. Ladoux, chemist in charge of State Experimental Station. One hundred pounds of white or Irish potatoes give 1526 pounds of starch; 100 pounds of sweet potatoes produce 1518 pounds of starch, and 6,8% pounds of glucose. Before the Irish-potato starch is used, artificially prepared glucose is added.

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Should a process be found, as suggested by Professor Ladoux, for simultaneously extracting the starch and glucose, the advantage would be with the sweet potato, by all odds.

The capacity for production in North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina is practically without limit, at a very low cost per bushel, whilst the means of collecting and transporting potatoes, in North Carolina, is remarkable for the extent, efficiency, and cheapness.

There are more than ten million acres in North Carolina, especially adapted to this special crop. North Carolina has three hundred miles of sea-front, with three thousand square miles of inland, navigable, tidal water, in long, narrow strips formed by seventeen rivers and creeks, expanding gradually into sounds. There are five hundred thousand acres on the twelve hundred lineal miles of inland navigation, from which. the potato can literally be shovelled into the hold of the vessel at the end of the row; and upon each of these five hundred thousand acres a crop of five hundred bushels of potatoes is neither impossible nor unattainable nor unusual, in a very lim

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ited way, now. There are eleven counties now reporting from four hundred to six hundred and seventy bushels, as the yield of an acre, say two hundred as an average for a large acreage. These waters are filled with little vessels called corn-crackers, manned by three men, and carrying from two to four thousand bushels of corn, and are poled where the stream is too narrow to sail. A steam-tug should tow them when filled and collected. The cultivation of the light, sandy soil is easy: two men and one mule can cultivate fifty acres, provided they have sufficient help to set out the slips, when the showers come in the spring. The gathering-season, or harvest, lasts for six weeks, beginning the first of September and lasting until the first frost, which is generally about the middle or end of October.

The sweet potato can be kept in large bulks (if a warm sweat is allowed to pass off, and precaution against freezing is taken) during the entire year, or until late in May and June.

They are now piled in the field where they were grown, with pine straw, and leaves, and then dirt, thrown over them, with a wisp of straw in top.

This potato can be raised for less than fifteen cents per bushel.

Mr. ATKINSON. I will state that there are two or three gentlemen who have been attracted by the quality of the sweet potato as a starch-producer: not only Mr. Morehead, but one or two others, are moving in the matter.

Adjourned.

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