804 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Georgia, while I make only ten pounds in Philadelphia. Is it 

 not evident that to make my Philadelphia mill equally efficient 

 with the other, it should have ten per cent more opening and 

 carding power, more drawing, slubbing, roving, spinning, and 

 finishing apparatus ? Some people say that ten hours make as 

 good an output as eleven ; but don't they forget that the product 

 depends upon the spindle revolutions at last ? While the spindle 

 revolves at normal speed, the twist must perforce go into the yarn. 



A mill has just commenced operation here, in the outskirts of 

 Macon, with English cards of fifty inches diameter and forty 

 inches wire surface, with top flats instead of rollers. They turn 

 off a little more than twenty pounds each per hour — two hundred 

 pounds and more per day. The card-room machinery is of Eng- 

 lish make and functions admirably. The spinning machinery is 

 of American make and is A No. 1. The product is very large, and 

 the demand for it so great that I was informed recently that the 

 mill was operated until 9 p. m. Most managers prefer American 

 machinery. I do not, for the carding department. The American 

 Robbeth spinning-frame seems to be almost beyond any further 

 improvement. There is no objection to it, as far as I know, except 

 that its cost is so great compared with the English cost of the 

 same machine. I am told that these American spindles cost this 

 Macon Company $3.30 each, while I have among my papers pro- 

 posals for the same spindle in England at eight shillings (about 

 $1.92 each). Most of the practical and skillful foremen are men 

 of Northern training, and have very strong predilections for the 

 machines they have been accustomed to, and many of them are 

 only operators of mills, not constructors or owners. One gentle- 

 man said in my hearing some years ago, " No man can make 

 money in this country with English machinery." I reminded him 

 (it was in 1880) that the English had built forty millions of spin- 

 dles for their own mills, and probably as many more for the rest 

 of the world, while the United States had then only about ten 

 millions; that some of the brightest intellects of England had 

 been engaged for more than a hundred years in the invention, 

 the construction, the operation, and the improvement of cotton- 

 working machinery, and that they might be supposed to have 

 reached results at least comparable with American results. He 

 said no more. 



Is it not ridiculous that people of sense say, after so long " pro- 

 tection," that they can not compete in price with English ma- 

 chinists — especially now, when I see the statement made that 

 American iron can be sold in England from five to six dollars per 

 ton cheaper than the English can make it at home ? The manu- 

 facturers of the North and East generally seem to be unable to 

 conquer their prejudices in which they have been indoctrinated 



