140 LAND AND LABOR. 



This statement shows a displacement of 50 per 

 cent, of the former employes in that mill by improve- 

 ments in its machinery in the five years between 1872 

 and 1877 ; and that one person, with improved ma- 

 chinery, now fills the place and does the work that 

 required 408 carders and spinners with the tools and 

 machinery in common use at the close of the first 

 quarter of the present century. 



At a meeting of the New England Cotton Manu- 

 facturers Association, held in Boston, October 5, 1876, 

 Mr. Wm. A. Burke, Treasurer of the Lowell Machine 

 Shop Company, read a paper upon the " Cost of Man- 

 ufacturing Drillings and Standard Sheetings in 1838 

 and 1876." In this paper Mr. Burke took the Boott 

 Mill No. 1, in Lowell, as a type for his illustration. 

 In this mill, in 1838, there were 232 operatives em- 

 ployed 12| hours a day for 24 days in May, who pro- 

 duced 208,606 yards of cloth. But in 1876, 90 opera- 

 tives, the number then employed, working 10 hours a 

 day, produced 204,863 yards. Keducing the 12f hours 

 of 1838 to 10 hours a day, the working time of 1876, 

 shows that it would have required 295 operatives in 

 1838, working 10 hours a day, to produce but a small 

 fraction more than 90 operatives produced in the same 

 number of days, in the same mill, in 1876. Here is 

 shown a displacement, by improvements in the ma- 

 chinery of one mill, within the last 40 years, of 70 per 

 cent, of the manual labor in the production of cotton 

 fabrics. Mr. Burke stated that " this improvement," 

 i. e., the displacement of muscle, " had been obtained 

 by larger mills, improvements in the construction 

 and workmanship of machinery, and many important 



