416 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— TEXTILES. 



Cost of yarn-making per finished ounce of cloth = a+bc. 

 (Where a and 6 are constants, c = yarn number.) 



Cost of yarn-making per yard=a«;+6cw\ 



But w=he/c, or cw=he, where h is a constant, e=sett, w=weight per yard. 



Substituting, the cost of yarn-making per yard=aw+6Ae, i.e. the sum of a weight 

 charge and of a sett charge. 



Warping, healding, sieving, winding, and weaving are mainly proportional to sett. 

 For fancy cloths, a small constant term is usually added to the statement to make-up 

 for extra work on coarse setts, 



.*. cost of weaving department, per yard=/+^e. 

 The mending department should be paid a percentage of the weaver's wages (say 

 70-75 per cent.). Cloth scouring, milling, finishing, and warehousing entail mixed 

 length-weight costs. Scouring materials, water, steam, packing, carriage are costs 

 proportional to weight. Commercial charges (selling, commission, patterns, interest 

 on working capital, discount, insurance of stock, claims, &c.) are mainly relative to 

 value. 



So net price of cloth per yard=^4?t)+Be+(7. 



But usually w=q/e (A, B, C, q, are constants). 

 Substituting and differentiating, we find that when w= \'qB-i-A will be found the 

 cheapest cloth, in the range of weights of a quality. 



Example of Synthesis of a Selling Price Formula. 



Cost of yarn per lb. . . = 50 + |c 



oz. fin. cloth = 3-5 +■- -046c 



,, yd. „ = 3-5w>+ -046cm; 



yd. „ = 3-5m>+ -21e 



cloth manufacturing . = -25e 



dyeing-finishing . = -6w +6 



Net mill cost . . . = 4-lw-f- -46e+6 



Selling price . . . = 4-4w+ -6e +6-5 



(w = 4-6e/c, 14-4 oz. fin. per lb. yarn. Price = Mill cost+7£ per 

 cent.+'le profit) 



Manufacturing profit is a variable circumscribed by very wide limits, because the 

 factors assumed to control it seldom do. The usual way of assessing profit is by 

 percentage on cost, which tends to make high-priced cloths too dear, and lower-priced 

 cloths under cost. The best method of basing profit is on ' the productive hour,' 

 because time is the chief controlling factor in business. A manufacturer has more to 

 sell than his visible product. He places technical ability at his customer's disposal, 

 i.e. service in the highest sense of the word. 



Mr. E. E. Canney. — Cotton-growing Policy : the Influence of Climate on 

 Staple Quality. 



The finest cotton crops ever produced were grown in the islands off the coast of 

 S. Carolina under singularly equable and genial climatic conditions during an 

 abnormally long season. Taking these as the optimum conditions for cotton staple 

 production as a whole, and examining the conditions under which other types of 

 commercial importance are grown, gradients of severity down to excessively wet, 

 dry, cold and cloudy margins and to variability extremes are clearly discernible. 

 Parallel with them run varietal adaptations from the most delicately nurtured Sea 

 Island variety to the distinct hardy varieties, producing corresponding ranges of 

 staple quality from the finest Sea Island down to the coarse staples of poorest spinning 

 quality. The harsher the conditions, i.e. in divergence from the old Sea Island 

 optimum, the hardier the appropriate type and the lower the staple quality appear 

 the universal rule. 



Neglect of this law largely explains the disappointingly slow rate of cotton- 

 growing expansion in the new areas, where a bias for long staple production, irrespective 

 of environmental considerations, has been consistently shown. Such a policy would 

 be obviously inadvisable for the U.S.A. cotton belt, for instance, where it is plain 

 that the disproportionately great loss in yield, in grade and crop security that 

 excessive-staple policy invariably entails, would be to the advantage of neither the 

 Lancashire spinner nor the growers. Yet the American cotton belt is much more 



