The redesigning of the uniform—which, by the way, never appeared in the field—accomplished several surprising economies. Merely by the substitution of trousers for breeches, the lacings, eyelets, tape, and stays thus eliminated amounted to 95¼ cents on each garment, and had the war lasted until July 1, 1919, would have saved the taxpayer nearly $17,000,000 on orders placed or in sight. The change in the design of the overcoat saved 62 cents per garment—an estimated saving, by July 1, of nearly $900,000. It was found that the service coat could be made for $1.60 less than the old blouse, which by July 1 would have effected an economy of close to $5,000,000. The changes in these three garments not only gave the American soldier a much better-looking uniform but it saved the American Government enough money to build a first-class battleship, and, what was most important of all, it effected an enormous economy in the consumption of raw wool, which, once exhausted, could not be replaced with all the money on earth. In making its earlier clothing contracts the government paid the contractor a percentage of the value of the yardage which he saved by his economy in cutting and it also permitted him to keep his own clippings. But later on, when the shortage in wool became more acute, the cloth issued to the contractor was calculated more closely, he received no credit for his savings, and all clippings had to be turned in. These clippings were sent to the base sorting-plant in New York, where they were baled and shipped to mills to be used as reworked wool, in blankets and other articles. From September, 1917, to December, 1918, this plant handled over 17,000,000 pounds of wool clippings, the total sales of which produced $5,500,000. Wool was not only made up into clothing but it went into such knit goods as undershirts, drawers, stockings, gloves, and puttees. This branch of the war woollen-goods industry found itself confronted with a serious problem in the lack of suitable machinery, for though there were numerous manufacturers of knit goods, their mills had been devoted to the production of specialties, such as men’s union suits and women’s underwear. These concerns had, therefore, to make great changes in their machinery, and sometimes to remodel their plants, before they could knit underclothing in the sizes required for the army. Toward the close of the war every machine in the United States that could make hosiery was knitting socks for soldiers.