Boott then became involved in the Boston Manufacturing Company at Waltham, Massachusetts. At some point during his residency in England, Boott had an opportunity to tour the spinning mills in the midlands. He was a quick study of engineering principals and was reputed to have committed his observations to paper. These notes and drawings, none of them extant today, subsequently formed the basis of some of the innovations and improvements in the mechanics and design of spinning and weaving technology which helped to make the mills in Lowell and subsequently other mills in New England more profitable than many of their English counterparts.