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GENERAL REPORT OF THE JUDGES OF GROUP VIII. g riage-cloths, and fancy cloths for upholstery; the best exhibit, in my opinion, being that of Messrs. Potter, Sons, & Co. For design and finish, durability of fabric and colors, and flexibility of oil floor-cloths of extraordinary size and area, the best example in the Exhibition (being fifteen yards long by eight yards wide, in one web) was exhibited by Messrs. Nairne & Co., of Scotland, Great Britain. In other floor cloths, the Boulinikon, from England, and the American Linoleum floor-cloth were both excellent in quality, design, colors, durability, and strength, and for warmth to the feet were unsurpassed. It has been my misfortune, in making this report, not to have the assistance at hand of my excellent co-Judges, Messrs. Webber and. Lockwood and Professor Hermann, of Germany, on machinery, and Messrs. 'Waddell and Baker on floor-cloths, etc. I should be very sorry if my opinion, thus expressed, should in any way differ from theirs, but, so far as I ciould gather at the time, I am inclined to think it does not.” AMERICAN COTTON AND COTTON MANUFACTURES. BY EDWARD ATKINSON. The report of the Chairman of Group VIII. gives a sufficient state ment of the details of the results reached by the Judges of that group; but it may, perhaps, be well for the Secretary to make a more general report upon one of the principal subjects of which the Judges were called upon to take cognizance, to w.i^ the cotton production and cotton manufacture of the United States. The commanding position of the United States in respect to the production of cotton has long been admitted; but it seems probable that even few of the manufacturers themselves have been fully aware of the strong position in which the cotton manufacture of the United States now stands in relation to other countries. The subject of the production of cotton opens so wide a field that it is hard to know where to begin or end. There is no other product which has had so potent an influence upon the history and institutions of the land, and perhaps no other on which its future material welfare may more ’depend. When the Spaniards first entered Mexico, the natives were found to be clothed in cotton, and the art of weaving and dyeing had been carried to a high state of perfection for that time among them. Then, as now, the best and most prolific varieties of the cotton-plant existed there, and the plant is doubtless indigenous to Mexico. In the United States, a century ago, it was scarcely known as an