such cotton as they were obliged to use. Every cotton spinner knows that every time cotton is passed through any of these machines, it is done to the injury of the staple. Middling cotton, passed through a machine with two beaters, and put directly to the card, will make better carding than if passed through four, six or more beaters; every operation makes it less easy to card. During the war, manufacturers were all trying processes and machines to enable them to use the lowest grades of cotton, partly because they could obtain but very little of the higher grade, and owing to the greatly increased cost of the same; but the same necessity for doing this no longer exists, as the difference in cost between the different grades is now so much less. The overworking of the low grades of cotton, necessary to get it clean, makes a great amount of waste, injures the staple, and puts the cotton in a condition unfavorable to secure the best results in spinning into yarn. When, therefore, the question is asked, What is the best method of preparing cotton for the card? there must be taken into consideration the quality and style of the goods desired to be made, and the grade of cotton which it is considered best to

use.

R. GARSED, Esq., of Philadelphia, Penn., said that, while in Europe, during the war, he found manufacturers there had adopted the Crighton oponer, with two cylinders. The cotton they used was so matted together that it was necessary to steam it before it went to the opener; and he came to the conclusion that, if the cotton could be had in as good condition as it was when it came from the gin, there would be no necessity for using an opening machine. It is then in a better condition, and the dirt can be more easily got out than after it has been baled up, and pressed, and matted together. If the dirt is thumped out of the cotton with beaters, a great deal of fly waste is made. Cotton in the

bale is in no condition to go through the beaters. A system of beaters does not seem to be the best method of getting cotton into a proper condition for the card. There must be some other method that will take out the dirt.

DANIEL. HUSSEY, Esq., said the best method of opening cotton is to put it through some process which will take out all hard and heavy substances, such as stones, pieces of iron, etc.; by carrying

it through a long pipe with boxes so arranged as to allow all such foreign matter to drop into them. Some machine is wanted that will open the cotton casily, and remove the large substances before they come to the beaters, to prevent fire, and the wear and tear of beaters; otherwise the beaters are soon worn out. Beaters are not the best for opening cotton. The speaker thought the oldfashioned way of whipping with sticks was well adapted to accomplish the object. The old-fashioned willow was also a very good machine; but if the attempt is made to get the dirt out without beaters, a failure is almost inevitable, judging from past experience. Mr. CUMNOCK said that he had made some experiments on two machines in a mill running on No. 36 yarn. He had taken out a part of the grids and substituted a flat board, and found that the cotton passed through these machines made four per cent stronger yarn than when the grids were parallel with the beater; but he got one and a half per cent. more waste than before; and the question had been raised in his mind, whether grids with sharp edges in a machine did not injure the cotton, and whether there was not some better method of opening cotton than by running it across sharp grids.

Mr. GARSED said that the dirt in the cotton must either be taken out at the picker or at the card. If the cotton is to be carded twice you need not be so careful with it. He failed to see how anything could be done with cotton filled with clam shells, horseshoes, bars of iron, nails, etc., unless these substances are taken out of the cotton before it comes to the finishing process. If beaters are set close together, the cotton will be broken; if set far apart, they are of no use.

He stated that a new compound of metal was being made at Pittsburg, known as "phospher-bronze," which was alleged to be as tenacious and durable as steel, and which could be used without danger of striking fire.

Mr. ATKINSON said he had for several years been accustomed to hold buyers of cotton up to a strict grade of middling; and the result was, that it had sometimes been very difficult to buy a line of cotton up to this strict grade; but he found the English manufacturers sought the lower grades, and would buy them in prefer ence to the extremely white cotton which American manufacturers

desire; and from that fact he had come to the conclusion that the English must have some process which we have not for getting the dirt out of this low cotton.

As a rule, the low grade cottons grown upon bottom lands were of better and stronger staple than the higher grades, especially of uplands; yet most of these cottons, like the "benders," so called, from the Red River, were exported. He believed, from such observations as he had been able to give the matter, that the pri mary processes in the treatment of cotton were the roughest and rudest; more injury was done in the ginning than in any other process in the whole manufacture, and under the slave system it had been impossible to correct the evil; but now many inventors were at work upon improvements in the gin, and he hoped to see good results. Again, cotton should be packed in small bales of 150 to 200 pounds weight, and carefully handled, like dry goods; not rolled in the mud and exposed to the weather. This would save waste, and remove a part of the necessity of overworking the cotton in the cleaning operations. There could not be a doubt that cotton was injured by too much beating in the openers and pickers; it seemed to him, theoretically, that it was as unfit to beat a fine fibre like cotton with heavy steel blades in rapid motion as it would be to beat a carpet with a fence rail to get out the dust. The fine motes in the cotton were lighter than the fibres, and could not be beaten out while the fibres were massed or matted together.

The speaker said that Mr Goodwin was preparing a system of opening and picking cotton with less beating and handling, leaving the fine leaf to be taken out by the mote-collector. He was prepared to show that all the fine leaf could be taken out of the cotton in the card. This had been done with some of the lowest grades of cotton, of so poor a quality that he would not recom mend anybody to use it as a matter of profit, simply to show what could be done. In the attempt to get rid of this overworking of the cotton, the mote-collector is an important part of the machinery used in the process.

CHARLES J. GOODWIN, Esq., of Indian Orchard, Mass., in reply to a question, said that in using the cotton Mr. ATKINSON sent him,

it was passed through one of Kitson's openers and two sets of The weight of six feet of lap was about

Whitin's pickers. eighteen ounces.

CHARLES NOURSE, Esq., of Woonsocket, R. I., said that at the last annual meeting of the association he ordered one of the motecollectors and had it put upon the card. A gentleman interested in the apparatus came to the mill, about two months ago, to see how it worked. He went into the mill and saw the mote-collecter, and said it was all right; the only trouble was that the cotton used in the mill was not poor enough, and but a small quantity of leaf or motes was collected in the boxes. The cotton worked was what is called the Mobile middling.

The CHAIRMAN said, that having watched the operation of the different processes for preparing cotton for the card, in a mill about to be started, of which he made the plans, he was going back precisely where he was twelve years ago. He had gone back to the use of low middling cotton, and was going to put in the old Kitson mixers, to be followed by two pickers of two beaters each. In working middling cotton, Gulf or upland, he would use one picker of one beater and one of two beaters,—would use two pickers instead of one, simply because the laps would be made

more uniform.

Mr. WHITEHEAD, of Lowell, Mass., at the request of a member gave a description of a cotton opener, which he was introducing. He thought the less beating the cotton received to get out the seed the stronger would be the yarn made from it.

Colonel SAMUEL WEBBER, of Manchester, N. H., read the following paper, showing the results of experiments in different modes of banding spindles.

RECORD OF TESTS UPON BANDING SPINDLES.

Power required to drive Spindles banded in several different manners, on similar Frames, in Pepperell Co.'s Mill, No. 3.

These tests were made in July last, at the request of William P. Haines, Esq., Agent of the Pepperell Mills, and J. H. McMullan, Esq., Agent of the Saco Water Power Machine Shop, and with the following variations:

First, on Ring Frames, with every Spindle banded separately. Second with 16 Spindles in a section, all on one side.

These results were so striking, that after being confirmed by a second day's trial, it was decided to test the Throstle Frames in the other mills of the Pepperell Co., which gave these results:

Mill No. 1, Pepperell Co., Old Lowell Throstle, Weight of Flier, 3.45 ounces.

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