On motion, it was voted to proceed to ballot for officers, on a general ticket, and Mr. DAVID M. AYER was appointed a committee to collect, assort and count the votes, who reported the above ticket duly elected.

The following gentlemen, upon nomination, were elected members of the Association :

JEFFERSON BORDEN, Jr.,

JAMES G. BRACKETT, .

GEO. B. DURFEE,

ALONZO FALLS,

HENRY S. FENNER,

IRA H. Foss,

GEO. B. HARRIS,.

REUBEN M. HOBBS,
WILLIAM LINDSAY,
EDWARD E. MANTON,

GEO. H. SEARLE,

E. E. TRUESDELL,

WILLIAM B. WHITING,

Fall River, Mass.
Biddeford, Me.
Fall River, Mass.
Great Falls, N. H.
Fall River, Mass.
Saco, Me.
Oakdale, Mass.
Biddeford, Me.

Fall River, Mass.

Boston, Mass.

Wilkinsonville, Mass.

Suncook, N. H.

Boston, Mass.

The PRESIDENT announced that the next business in order would be the reading of a paper by F. A. LEIGH, Esq., of Boston, upon the subject of

REPAIRS IN COTTON MILLS.

Mr. LEIGH presented his paper on this subject, which was listened to with marked interest and attention, and appears in full at the close of this record of Proceedings.

The PRESIDENT, in inviting discussion from the members present in regard to the paper, said that the subject was one newly presented to the Association, and perhaps many on that account were not able at once to direct their thoughts to such points as the speaker had presented. The listening to the essay would undoubtedly however lead to much useful reflection, and the suggestions offered would certainly be found very profitable, and receive the attentive consideration to which they were justly entitled. The Association could not but feel under great obligations to Mr. LEIGH for having called their attention to this matter of repairs, which was an important, expensive, and sometime very troublesome one, as all manufacturers were well aware who had had experience in this direction.

In accordance with the announcement made in the published notice of this meeting, an address was then delivered by EDWARD ATKINSON, Esq., upon the subject of

EXPORT TRADE IN COTTON GOODS, AND THE MEANS OF ITS PROMOTION.

In introducing the lecture, Mr. ATKINSON Said:

It might have been wiser for you to have waited a little before electing me to the office to which you have called me; for perhaps after listening a little time to what I might have to say, you would not have chosen me. I thank you very much for the invitation you have given me to address you.

Before proceeding to the consideration of my theme, I desire to state that, having been employed to oppose the extension of the WOODMAN and WELLMAN patents, I have the pleasure of reading to you this note :

"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, "April 22.

"DEAR SIR :-In reply to your inquiry of this date, I have to say that, on the 24th of March, 1876, the committee on 'Patents and

Patent Office' decided to report adversely upon the application of HORACE WOODMAN for an extension of his patent on Card Strippers. "THEO. T. DAVIDSON, Clerk Com. on Patents."

I suppose that is the end of the matter. There are a few copies of the argument submitted, on the table, which I thought some of you might like, and they are at the service of the Association.

I will say before proceeding, that, as the subject of exports demanded a very close treatment and a great many figures, after advising with the Secretary, and finding that no extra expense would be incurred by the Association, I caused the substance of my statement to be set up and printed before the meeting. If it has exceeded a reasonable length or a reasonable expense, I shall, of course, be responsible therefor.

I am not going to inflict upon you all that I have prepared, as contained in this lengthy production which I hold in my hand. There are many tables here which it would be useless to recite,

Mr. ATKINSON then proceeded to give his address, which appears at full length at the close of this pamphlet.

After the lecture, the following discussion took place :Mr. JOHNSTON, of Cohoes, N. Y. In the very complete and interesting statements made by Mr. ATKINSON, I think there is great encouragement to cotton manufacturers of this country, except to print-cloth manufacturers. If I were other than a print-cloth manufacturer, I should, after hearing these statements, imagine that the stock of my company was advanced twenty-five per cent. I should not be interested at all, except as to the exportation of my goods, and as to the amount of cloth manufactured. The print-cloth manufacturers should call a convention to consider what is to be done to provide for the exportation of their goods. My observation has led me to the belief that there were less calicoes worn now than fifteen years ago, per capita. There must be a large amount of print-cloth used where before only brown goods were used. If there were enough to make up the difference, it would put the print-cloth manufacturer on as good a basis as others. If not, it behooves

print-cloth manufacturers to bestir themselves and get out of this slough of despond in which they are shown to be.

Mr. ATKINSON. Mr. Chairman, I should be very sorry to think that anything I have said, or written, or submitted to this Association, should leave anybody in a slough of despond. I take it that the figures are as encouraging to print-cloth manufacturers as to anybody else,-differing a little in degree. I hold that if the market has so far absorbed this enormous increase in the production of printing-cloths, as it proves to have done, it only requires the restoration of this country to its normal condition, and the cure of what I call restricted consumption, to create a demand for every yard of printing-cloths, as well as for every yard of every other goods; and, morcover, that the printing-cloth now made differs only in width from the largest single article of export that I suppose is sent out from Great Britain, and that is the "gold end" and "red end" shirting, specimens of which are here before you. I therefore think and hope that what I have submitted here is almost as encouraging to the print-cloth manufacturer as it is to the manufacturer of any other class of cotton goods.

Mr. JOHNSTON. I would like to ask Mr. Atkinson if he has any data or statistics which will give some information in regard to the amount of these light print-cloth goods that are used for other purposes than for calicoes. He mentions quite a list of purposes for which these goods are used, and, perhaps, he is able to give us some information upon that matter.

Mr. ATKINSON. I think that Mr. Garsed, of Philadelphia, can answer that question better than I.

Mr. GARSED. I have no facts before me; but I distinctly remember that when the subject was first brought to notice in taking an account of the apparent product of the printing-machine as against the product of the loom, there seemed to be a great surplus of cloth not accounted for by the printing-machine; and on looking around, it was very plain to see that the great consumption not accounted for in our statistics went, as Mr. Atkinson has said in his address, to the lining of travelling-bags, and trunks, and carriage-backs, and all manner of veneering, and all manner of work where it was necessary to bend a piece of wood, and to cheese-cloths; and in this shape were largely sent to Great Britain; and also to tobacco-bags, and salt-bags, and

very many other things concerning which it was not possible to give any accurate statistics. The difference in the exhibits of last year's product of the printing-machine and of the loom must be accounted for in this way: there is no great stock of printing-cloths on hand, I presume,—or was not then.

While I am upon the floor, I will say, in answer to some of the remarks of Mr. Atkinson, that when last in England, I had occasion to go to the office of a very prominent manufacturing house in Manchester that exported cotton goods. One day, being in that office with a prominent United States buyer, I was compelled to listen to a conversation between a weaver and a yarn-spinner, which was about to this effect. The weaver said to the other, "I will weave for you a given number of tons of cotton-yarn for nothing, if you will supply the yarn. I will give you back as many pounds of woven goods as you gave me of yarn, and charge you nothing for weaving them." That struck me as a very queer arrangement at the time, and I began to inquire how the thing was done. But before the negotiation was closed, an explanation was afforded when the spinner said to the weaver, "You shall not weight the yarn more than 37 per cent." Now, I did not sleep very well under that information; but the next day I went out to a celebrated sizer, whom I found to be very much of a gentleman, and I wanted to know how in the world they put in 37 per cent. of size into cottonwarp. He said, "There is no trouble about that. We will put you in 55 in 55 per cent." And they were kind enough to show me how it was done.

If you will look at the cloths here exhibited, those that have been weighed lose some 17 per cent. of the whole cloth. Now, of course the filling is not stiffened, and the whole loss comes from the warp. While Mr. Atkinson was making his address, I referred to some crude memoranda, and I find that just that amount of loss will pay the entire cost of weaving. I obtained these figures from an Englishman who left this country some three years ago for England, where he started some looms on a sixty-reed cloth, 39 inches wide, which is about the fineness of our print-cloths. He paid for weaving 15d. for 48 yards; and he said the usual price paid by the spinner or owner of the yarn, for weaving the yarn into cloth, was double the weaver's wages; and that at this rate he could, upon fifty looms, clear for