The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1885-07-22

wide, and about two inches thick. On the
smooth side of this he drew with pencil
the exact tracing of a parsley leaf gathered
from his garden. Then, with a pen-knfe,
some small chisels, and such other tools as
he could purchase, with his own hands he
diligently cut away all those parts of the
wood not covered by the drawing, leaving
the parsley spray standing in relief. In
other words he succeeded in making a
coarse and crude wood engraving of the
leaf. In the back of the block thus pre-
pared he fixed handle, and at each of the
four corners of it he inserted a small pin or
stout wire. He next mixed in a tub
bright green color, well ground with alum,
to consistency fit for printing On the
surface of this colorng material lay a thick
wooden cloth or blanket, thoroughly sat
urated with the dye. Laying another
blanket on his kitchen table, and stretching
some white calico on the top of that, the in
ventive farmer applied his wooden block to
the saturated wooden cloth, dabbing it re-
peatedly until it had taken up a sufficient
quantity of the color. He then laid the
block squarely on the stretched white
cloth, and gave it sharp blow on the back
with mallet, thus printing the impression
of the parsley leaf. The four pins fixed at
the corners of the block served to guide
him in applying it squarely at each consecu-
tive impression. He worked on until the
entire surface of the cloth was covered with
the bright green parsley leaves He had
produced the first piece of printed cotton
goods the world had ever seen. This pat
tern succeeded so well that he found him
self called on for other and various designs.
These he also made with his own hands,
jealousy keeping his secret to himself and
preserving monopoly of the trade his in
genuity had created. The demand for his
colored prints grew so fast that he could
not begin to produce them rapidly enough.
He then impressed the services of his entire
family into the manufacture, his sons aiding
him in printing the goods and his wife and
daughters working early and late in ironing
out the printed cloths after the colorng
became dry. This ironing process, espe
cially, was laborious and tedious Although
the women bent over the fiat-irons early and
late, they could not meet the orders that
constantly poured in. The ingenious far
mer then set to work to overcome this OBJ
stacle. Remembering the advantage he had
derived from the use of a cylinder in card
ing the cotton wool, he once more turned to
the cylinder to help him out with a machine
to supersede fiat-irons. With the help of
carpenter he constructed a large oblong
frame, with a smooth bed of solid planking,
supported on upright posts, and with
raised ledge on either side. Running from
side to side he placed roller, with handle
to turn it, and around the roller he wound
a rope in spiral fashion. Each end of the
rope was fastened to strong oblong box, as
large as the bed of the frame, and the box,
being filled with the paving stones, was
heavy enough to impart a powerful pressure.
Instead of ironing his pieces of calico, the in
Ventlve farmer now wound them carefully
around small wooden rollers, which he
placed in the smooth bed beneath the box
of stones, drew that back and forth over
them by means of the handle attached to
the cylinder which had the rope coiled
around it, and in this manner without the
use of hot tlat-irons, he gave the requisite
finish to his work Thus il was that the
IN Crl a nc i1f1 hn nrl1 'l,n ma
chine being a success, it of course greatly
increased the producing power of the family.
The farmer worked on with redoubed in
dustry The more goods he printed, the
more they were wanted, and, as he had taken
special pains that no outsider should master
his mystery, he retained the trade in his
own hands. He grew rapidly in wealth and
consequence, and at last the whiom village
farmer became principal in one of the largest
and most prosperous manufacturing firms
in all England. He took his eldest son into
partnership, and applying his capital to the
production of machinery to facilitate cotton
printing, was able to transfer his patterns
from blocks to cylinders, and thus to print
III few minutes piece of cloth which it
would have taken week to complete under
his original process with the mallet and the
blocks. The ingenious farmers son became
man of immense wealth and influence,
and was made a barOnet. His son, the
grandson of the inventive Lancashire farmer
was young man of commanding talents,
who ultimately became one of the greatest
prime ministers that Great Britain ever had.
There, young man, such is the early history
of cotton prints, which explains the penny
a-yard and all other colored calicoes of the
day Isn't it interesting" Assuredly;
but what was his name?" The dry goods
proprietor smiled complacently. The
name" said he, "of the ingenious Lam
cashire farmer, of the rich patriotic baronet
and of the great prime minister was one and
the same-Robert Peel"