A bill which came before the New York Legislature in 1724, but failed of passage, introduced the policy of protection for infant industries, in an exceedingly narrow and discriminating sense. The beneficiary of the bill was William Bradford, doubtless the same man who owned the quarter interest in the first Pennsylvania mill, and by its provisions he and his assigns were to be encouraged to make paper, while all other persons were to be prohibited from manufacturing it in the province during a period of fifteen years. ♦Pulp from stone♦ Man’s untiring endeavor, his constant effort through the centuries to find something better suited to his needs, had in a figurative sense succeeded in turning stone into paper. It remained for two apprentices of Rittenhouse, who erected a third paper-mill in Pennsylvania in 1728, to advance the claim that this could be done literally, that stone, the primitive material on which had been carved the first written characters of the race could be converted into a paper resembling asses’ skins. We have no means of knowing what the so-called stone was, nor what process was followed, but it is safe to assume that both material and methods were similar to those employed at the present time in the manufacture of asbestos papers. ♦A state grant♦ The year 1728, which marked the establishment of the third mill in Pennsylvania, was a notable one in the annals of paper-making. It is stated that in that year William Bradford owned a mill at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, which is supposed to have been the first one in the state, while in the same year the General Court or Legislature of Massachusetts granted a ten-year patent to a company for the exclusive right to manufacture paper. By the terms of this grant the company was to make at least 115 reams of brown and 60 reams of writing paper in the first fifteen months, and to increase a certain amount each year until the annual product of the various qualities should be not less than 500 reams a year. The mill established under this patent went into operation at Milton, one of the small towns near Boston, in 1730. It was erected by Daniel Henchman, an enterprising stationer of Boston, and is supposed to have been discontinued owing to the impossibility of securing a skilled workman, though in 1731 Henchman produced before the General Court samples of paper made at the mill. In the following year another stationer of Boston, Richard Fry, who was also bookseller, paper-maker and rag merchant, returned thanks to the people for gathering rags, of which he had already received several pounds weight, in response to a request in a previously published advertisement. ♦Crude methods and machines♦