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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP IX. administration. It is due to our wool-growers to say that the cloths so highly commended were made generally of American wool, Aus tralian wool being used in some cases, not from preference, but to eke out the short supply of the domestic stock. It is proper in this connection to depart from the strict arrangement of the classification to consider a class of fabrics which, though made of combed wool, are really cloths, and are directly allied with the card-wool fabrics just reviewed. The Exhibition showed that the most formidable rivals of the fancy cassimeres are the fabrics known as worsted coatings. Being woven in the fancy loom, either Jacquard or Crompton, and made for the same purposes and by the same man ufacturers as the cassimeres, they differ from them only in the respect that the cassimeres are made of carded and the worsted cloth of combed wool. This fabric, created in France, in the introduction of its fabrication to this country affords another illustration of the benefit of International Exhibitions. Mr. E. R. Mudge, of Boston, being Commissioner of the United States at the Exposition of Paris of 1867, was impressed with this fabric then exhibited, and then much worn both in London and Paris, as a novelty. Seeing that it was made of combed Merino wool, he directed inquiries to ascertain if suitable wools for this fabric could be abundantly furnished by American fleeces. Satisfying himself affirmatively upon this point, he imported and introduced the requisite machinery for combing and spinning the wools at the Washington Mills, in Lawrence, Massachusetts, of which he is a leading director. This establishment succeeded so well in the fabrication of these stuffs, and they proved so popular when thrown upon the market, that the introducer soon found a host of rivals and imitators. A new industry at once sprung up,—that of combing and spinning the wools into worsted yarns, for supplying the many fancy cassimere-mills which desired to weave these fabrics. One of the most conspicuous displays at the Exhibition was that of the United Spinners’ Association of Philadelphia, comprising eight distinct establishments, all exclusively devoted to making Merino combing- wool worsteds for worsted coatings and for suspenders and india- rubber goods, and producing an annual product of $1,500,000. The perfection of the yarns was fully recognized by the experts in the group of Judges. They were made almost exclusively of American Merino wool, which the exhibitors declared to have proved pre ferable for their purpose to even the best Australian wools, being “kinder, more elastic, and stronger.” Here was a new industry founded scarcely six years ago, and a palpable demonstration of new and unsuspected qualities of excellence in American wools,—a de-