Requests for deferred shipments, extra dating, and special discounts also cause producers much annoyance and loss. Deferred shipments compel the manufacturer to hold the finished goods for some time. This necessarily takes up valuable space, and all the time the goods are being held interest and other expenses are mounting up on them. Concerning extra dating and special discounts, the manufacturer is placed in much the same position that he occupies in regard to cancellation. Rather than lose a customer he will comply with demands which are sometimes very unreasonable, knowing that his competitors are willing to meet the demands and in the hope thus to establish a new permanent account.

SIZE OF INDIVIDUAL ORDERS.

It was stated that buyers had been recently placing smaller orders than formerly and ordering more frequently. This cautious buying has caused much uncertainty among manufacturers, particularly in regard to deliveries. The following is quoted from Knit Goods for April-May, 1914:

Cautious buying has caused the knitters considerable annoyance because of deliveries. By waiting until their stock runs low, the buyers are compelled to demand almost immediate deliveries, which are impossible unless the manufacturers bear the brunt of the risk. If they knit in large quantities, they run the risk of not receiving reorders from the buyers who may feel a slack in demand, and therefore leave the stock on the hands of the manufacturer.

It is a general complaint among manufacturers that there is no cooperation among them in regard to dates for the opening of each season's trade. Interviews with them show that they are very distrustful of one another in regard to adhering to any agreement. When an agreement regarding an opening date is made, it is the common experience that it will be broken by some manufacturers starting out their salesmen before the fixed time. An editorial on this subject in Knit Goods for April, 1915, says:

Manufacturers, according to the Textile World Record, do not realize that in a good many cases they prove to be their own worst enemies. They have their associations and meetings and try to agree, for instance, on a time to open up their lines, but they do not agree, as each one thinks that he may be able to steal a march on the other one and go out first. He is not away a day when his competitor not only knows of this fact, but also knows what his prices are. The buyer is not as much interested in the first man as he is liable to be a little later on when he knows what all are doing, especially in a tepid market like the present. Then, again, what do they do? They take blanket orders subject to confirmation when the buyer comes to New York. He seems to forget, or does not appreciate, that his competitor also has a pocket full of these so-called "orders" and later on he has to do his work all over again. If it is a high market, the same condition exists, as the buyer does not want to pay the first man an advance. These conditions are decidedly unsatisfactory to everybody concerned. Whole-hearted cooperation would make the meetings of the association prove productive of genuine good.

Trade abuses, such as cancellations, returns, and allowances, requests for deferred shipments, extra dating, special discounts, etc., have been prevalent for years, and as time goes on are increasing rather than diminishing. Though all knit-goods manufacturers complain of these practices, they have never taken any positive step to eliminate them. While various remedies have been suggested in conventions and associations in the trade, none have ever been put into active practice owing to lack of cooperation.

An editorial in the Dry Goods Economist for March 13, 1915, says: It was admitted by several of the manufacturers that certain abuses and evils which now exist and have existed for years affect their business in a far greater degree than the tariff change. With these evils Economist readers are only too familiar. One of them is the tendency to cancel orders or break contracts which have been made and accepted in good faith. The other is the practice of requiring manufacturers to reduce the prices at which the goods have been sold in case of a decline in price at the time delivery of the goods is made. In each of these cases the trouble is due to the old, moss-grown, unbusinesslike method, to which the Economist has frequently referred, of regarding a contract or order as not binding on the purchaser.

An article relating to trade abuses, published in the financial columns of the New York Times for March 21, 1915, makes the following suggestions:

The only apparent cure for this sort of an abuse is to have a cooperative organization of sellers, and under their direction an arbitration board made up either of executive firms who are well posted on manufacturing or of practical milf men who would do nothing else than pass on such disputes and be in the employ of the organization suggested.

CHAPTER V.

PRODUCTS, MACHINERY, AND PROCESSES.

KNIT-UNDERWEAR PRODUCTS.

The knit-goods industry is one of the main subdivisions of cotton manufacturing and includes all goods made from one or more continuous threads into a web by means of a series of interlocking loops or stitches. Underwear is that branch of the knit-goods industry which includes all underclothing.

Kinds of underwear.-Knit underwear may be either full fashioned or seamless. In full-fashioned underwear the various parts are properly fashioned on a flat-frame machine and then seamed together. În seamless underwear, the web or fabric is knit tubular and the fashioning is accomplished by cutting out the desired pattern. Practically all the knit underwear manufactured in this country is seamless. Very little full-fashioned underwear is manufactured, usually for infants, but its costliness prohibits it from general use. Seamless underwear may be shaped, but underwear so shaped is not what is generally termed full fashioned. Some seamless underwear is taken in at the side and seamed, in order to produce a garment shaped to the form of the body. Where such seaming of the sides is employed it is generally on ladies' vests and union suits, though some manufacturers employ the same method for shaping men's union suits.

Varieties of underwear.-Knit underwear may be ribbed, flat, fleeced, balbriggan, or mesh. Ribbed underwear may be Jersey (royal) ribbed, which is made with a tuck stitch, Derby or plain ribbed, or Swiss ribbed. Jersey rib is used for men's, women's, and children's underwear, the Derby rib usually for men's underwear, and the Swiss rib for ladies' vests and union suits. Ribbed underwear is usually made on a circular latch-needle machine, though sometimes on a spring-needle circular machine. Swiss-ribbed underwear, in this country, is generally made on a circular latch-needle machine, though the genuine Swiss ribbed is made on a flat-frame, full-fashioning machine. Flat underwear is not made on a flat machine, but on a circular spring-needle machine which produces a fabric with a flat effect used in the manufacture of men's, women's, and children's underwear. Fleeced underwear may be either ribbed or flat, and is made for men, women, and children. Balbriggan underwear is made of a hard-twisted cop yarn, and generally of Egyptian cotton or of cotton stained to resemble Egyptian. It is made on the circular machine and manufactured for men and boys only. Mesh underwear is made on a circular machine and in a variety of mesh designs, principally for men and boys, and to some extent for women.

Knit underwear is made of cotton, wool, merino, worsted, silk, or any combination of these varns. Cotton is now most commonly

used, though all of the other yarns are still utilized to a great extent. Ribbed underwear is by far the most prevalent.

The

History of underwear styles.-At the end of the seventies practically all garments made in this country were flat garments, that is, the fabric was flat knit. In 1884 the latch-needle ribbed garment came into vogue. This rib, however, though an advance over the flat type of garment, was far from satisfactory. In the early nineties the spring-needle rib made its appearance, and with its ascendency the flat garment declined until to-day the bulk of all underwear produced for men, women, and children is ribbed goods. The popularity of the spring-needle rib is due to retaining its elasticity after wear and washing, which the latch-needle rib does not. The flat garment has very little elasticity. only seamless flat goods produced to-day are the woolen and balbriggan garments. Another type of flat goods produced to a very limited extent is the full-fashioned garment. Recent years have seen a marked change in the underwear business. The tendency is toward finer goods and lighter-weight garments, especially of cotton, this yarn being cheaper. The three qualities generally recognized to-day as essential for underwear fabrics are elasticity, porosity, and thickness without undue weight. Light-weight garments are in demand in winter as well as summer, many people having discontinued wearing woolen, merino, and other heavy-weight garments, because they believe that wearing the same weight underwear all year round makes them less susceptible to colds. Women do not wear knit underwear as extensively as men, on account of the prevailing style of outer apparel.

All fleeces, which originally were intended for the foundation of outer wear and not for underwear, have fallen into disuse, because of the demand for light-weight garments, and also because of the tendency of the small fibers of the napped surface to roll into lumps and become detached from the fabric and to harden into lumps in washing. Where fleeces are worn, the inclination is for flat fleeces to be displaced by the ribbed fleece, because of its greater elasticity.

Balbriggan underwear is gradually being displaced by mesh underwear, as the plain balbriggan garment lacks porosity and elasticity and its tendency to cling to the body makes it uncomfortable for

summer wear.

In the last six or seven years there has been a great demand for sleeveless shirts and knee-length drawers for men and to some extent for women. Tight-fitting styles of outer apparel both for men and women have made it uncomfortable to wear full-sleeved shirts and ankle-length drawers.

During the last few years the two-piece suit has been rapidly displaced by the union suit. Manufacturers are unanimously of the opinion that the union suit is the undergarment of the future. It fits the form better, for it has no double thickness around the waist and hips. It is more comfortable, for the shirt can not slip up nor the drawers down. The union suit is still a problem with most underwear manufacturers and is still in its infancy. At present the West appears to be the greatest market for the union suit.

Knit underwear absorbs perspiration, and therefore from a sanitary point of view is said to be the ideal undergarment. Underwear cut

from light woven cloth and sewed into garments has recently made great inroads into the knit-underwear business, especially the men's branch.

KNIT-UNDERWEAR MACHINERY.

HISTORY.

Knitting machinery both for hosiery and underwear started in 1589 with the invention in England of the stocking frame by William Lee. He saw the possibility of knitting at one operation the complete course, instead of a single loop, by bringing all of the loops forward simultaneously and casting them over a new corrugated thread. After some experimenting he accomplished this, and so we received the hook form, or barbed bearded needle, which to this day is used in every country where the knitting industry is established."

Meeting with no encouragement from the royal authorities, Lee moved to Rouen, France, and though, after his death his brother returned to England, the knitting industry had its beginning in France. Lee's final machine was full fashioning, had eight needles to the inch in width, and produced a plain web. Instead of one needle to hold the stationary loop while those in the moving row were being inserted, as in hand knitting, there were as many needles as loops in the breadth of the web, alternately forming and giving off loops. The machine had hooked needles and an arrangement for closing the hook in the needle, so that one loop could be drawn through another.

The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, was probably the direct cause for the beginning of the knitting industry in Germany, it having very likely been established there by refugees from France. It began in Hesse, and thence spread to the Chemnitz district, where, because of the surrounding mountains with their plentiful supply of the wood needed for the knitting frames, the industry became firmly established, and it remains to-day the chief German center for hosiery and knit goods.

In 1758 Jedidah Strutt, of Derby, England, invented the hosiery machine, which made a plain ribbed fabric, known to-day as the Derby rib. His invention was not an improvement on Lee's machine but simply an addition. He left Lee's machine unaltered but added to it a ribbing mechanism. The rib was accomplished by adding a second series of needles, placed at right angles to and between those on Lee's machine.

In 1764 Shaw, Morris, and Betts took out a patent for making eyelet holes in knitted fabrics by the use of needles.

In 1769 Sam Wise took out a patent for changing the hand frame to a power frame by putting a revolving shaft in the lower part of the frame work which could be turned by any motor power.

In 1775 the warp machine was invented, the credit of the invention. being disputed. In the United States up to 1775 there were only 150 stocking frames, most of those being in Germantown, Pa.

In 1777, William Betts invented a power frame, the needle bar moving backward and forward and also upward, in order to press the needle against the fixed presser.

In 1780, frames having been made wider, they were utilized to knit the web for shirts and drawers.