Wool industry

“ The Tariff Board reported that the average cost of production of wool in this country is about three times as high as in Australia and about double that in South America. On that basis our present duty is ridiculously low, and it is a wonder that our wool industry has not long gone out of existence. ”

“ Wool, silk, cotton, linen, paper, and many others materials have come into common use. All of these are produced by groups of people of whose working conditions we are in ignorance and whose very existence is unknown to most of us. Among civilized people the use of wool has grown to such an extent that the sheep-raising industry has become one of the biggest businesses in all sections of America. The sheep-herder lives a lonely life and yet rarely complains, and is never happier than when out in the fields with his charges. ”

“ The wool industry dates back to prehistoric man. The patience, care, and skill involved in its manufacture have ever exercised a potent influence on civilization. It is, therefore, interesting and gratifying to note the intelligent eagerness of our first colonists for wool culture. It was quickly and proudly noted of towns and of individuals as a [188] proof of their rapid and substantial progress that they could carry on any of the steps of the cloth industry. Good Judge Sewall piously exulted when Brother Moody started a successful fulling-mill in Boston. ”

“ It soon became apparent that, to sustain our manufacturing interest—that engaged in the manufacture of fine cloths—the diminution of fine wools should not only be at once arrested, but that the growth of them should be immediately and largely increased. An increased attention was accordingly bestowed upon this branch of industry, and sections of the country which had previously held aloof from wool-growing, embarked in that calling with commendable enterprise. ”

“ Again, the manufacture of wool is the most laborious, the most intricate, the most delicate, the most variable, of any of the fibers; and for this reason among others it deserves to rank, as it does, as the textile industry requiring the most brains and demanding the largest resources of art and skill. ”

“ The demand of the wool-growers that the prohibitive duties on all kinds of wool substitutes be restored, was imperative. By raising the cry of “shoddy” they could wrest a duty from Congress on any material, no matter how valuable to the manufacturer. Perhaps no word has been more unjustly degraded in the history of industry in this country. The world has never produced enough raw wool to meet the demand 249for woollens. It has always been necessary and probably always will be necessary, to use wool waste and wool rags. ”

“ Here a capital of £40,000,000, employing 140,000 operatives, turns out each year a product of manufactured wool valued at nearly the total amount of its capital. Here, built up within the century, is an aggregation of organized industrial development without a parallel among the princely cities of antiquity—the most striking, the most tangible, of the many results of the evolution of the wool manufacture. The complete organization of the Bradford manufacture indicates the ultimate development of the industry. ”

“ In Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Upper Austria, however, this manufacture is more extensively carried on than in other parts. There are here a number of factories for the spinning of flax, and the finer kinds of linen are manufactured.
The woollen manufacture is also an old established branch of industry, and is actively carried on. It is estimated that about 600,000 cwt. of wool is annually spun; and there are about 230 spinning factories, with upwards of 700,000 spindles. The great seats of the woollen manufacture are in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and Upper Austria. ”

“ Much as iron has loomed up lately, the working of the various fibres—cotton, wool, flax, hemp and jute—constitutes the pet industry of her people, and very elaborate and beautiful are the machines at the Exposition, especially attractive and less commonly known being those for working long or combing wool, flax, hemp and jute. The United States is not doing as much as it ought in the working of these fibres, and the money which is paid for the purchase of foreign linens and fabrics made of other materials than cotton and wool might, some economists think, be employed at home in making them. ”

“ Taken in connection with the price of wool, the discrimination against the coarse, heavy-shrinking wools used primarily by the woolen industry appears even more striking. Thus, on the finer grades of wool quoted in London at forty-seven cents per pound, the duty of eleven cents would be equivalent to twenty-three per cent. ad valorem; while on the lower-priced wools, the only kind that is available for the poor man’s cloth, the eleven-cents duty would be equivalent to the prohibitive figure of anywhere from one hundred to five hundred and fifty per cent. ”

“ The end of the century also finds the sheep industry in a depressed condition on account of over-production. The vast quantities of wool grown in Australasia and South Africa have clogged the markets to such an extent that Australian wool in the London market has dropped from 15d. ”

“ The wool manufacture of Great Britain employs very nearly three hundred thousand persons; in the various processes connected with the production of cloth, worsted, flannel, blankets, and carpets. What a contrast to all this variety of labour is the history of the earlier stages of the manufacture of woollen cloth. ”

“ And in this point we are to consider, that the bulk of our woollen exports does not consist in draperies made of the fine wool, peculiar to our soil, but is composed of coarse broad cloths, such as Yorkshire cloths, kerseys, which make a great part of our exports, and may be, and are made of a coarser wool, which is to be had in other countries. ”

“ An eminent woollen manufacturer having been asked what cloth he would recommend for wear and warmth to a backwoodsman, answered quickly, “Nothing can wear like a good blanket.” The small manufacturers generally dispose of their cloth in the rough state.
The progress of machinery has called into existence a great number of factories, especially in worsted and mixed stuffs, has given value to many descriptions of wool formerly valueless, and, coupled with the repeal of the duty, brought into the market many kinds unknown a few years ago. ”

“ Long, coarse, or hard wools, used in the manufacture of camlets, bombazines, circassians, and other worsted fabrics, are not carded, but combed. In England, and in other countries where much of this kind of wool is used, wool-combing forms a distinct trade. ”

“ A great proportion of the woollen fabrics worn in the United States, are manufactured in families, part of which is sent to the clothiers to be dressed. Much cotton yarn, spun at the manufactories, is purchased [73] for domestic use. Formerly, the raw material was procured, and spun into yarn on the big wheel. Coarse linens are also extensively manufactured in families, especially among the German population.
29. The manufacture of cloth from wool was introduced into Britain by the Romans, some time in the Augustan age. ”

“ But the wool-growers have not for many years, if ever, produced even half of what we use. It is customary to figure the amount as much larger. “Seventy per cent of the wool we use is produced at home,” the wool boomers cry, but they do their figuring on grease wool and omit altogether the wool which comes in manufactured! There is only one fair way to estimate the amount we grow, and that is to find out what we get from it after it is cleaned of grease and dirt and compare it with the clean wool, raw and manufactured, we import. ”

“ The articles are chiefly cast and wrought iron wares, all the utensils necessary for cotton or woollen factories, dye-houses &c., and various sorts of pure white, white and blue mixed, or plain blue cotton stuffs, but no printed calico. Some of the woollen cloths were very fine, and sold for seven dollars a yard; they were made at Steubenville. A good lasting dye-stuff for wool is still to be desired. I saw here some newly-invented locks; fine steelware is not very abundant, and the cutlery business is still in its infancy. ”

“ In the eighteenth century it appeared, from the observations of the Economical Society, that the fabrication of stuffs and cloths employed but one hundred and twenty looms, in which only four thousand three hundred and eighteen quintals of washed wool were consumed.
“About forty years ago these manufactures began to revive, the looms were multiplied, and the consumption of wool considerably augmented. A single individual, Don Lorenzo Ortiz, has for some years accelerated their progress. ”

“ The importance of such a work cannot be overrated. Take the subject of sheep for example: the steadily growing demand for woollen goods of every description is producing a great and lucrative [4] development of the wool trade. Even light fabrics of wool are now extensively preferred throughout the country to those of cotton. Our imports of wool from England during the past six years have increased at an almost incredible rate, while our productions of the article during the past few years greatly exceed that of the same period in any portion of our history. ”

“ So far as the manufacturers, or mills of various sorts, are concerned, there is one striking difference about the paper of woolen and worsted mills as against cotton mill notes which appear in the open market; cotton mill paper, except in the case of the strongest mills, usually bears the endorsement of the commission house which sells the mill’s product, but this is not as a rule the case with woolen and worsted mill paper. The reason is that a large number of the wool manufacturing establishments sell direct to wholesalers and jobbers, and have no close affiliation with a selling-house. ”

“ The introduction of machinery and steam-power revolutionized the manufacture of woolen goods. A woman could card one pound of wool a day by hand, spin two skeins of yarn, and weave two or three yards of cloth. Now, by the use of machinery, one worker can card 150 pounds of wool, spin 500 pounds and weave from 35 to 50 yards of cloth in a day. The amount of wool produced throughout the world one year was estimated at 2,643,533,794 pounds, nearly half of which came from Australasia, South America and South Africa. ”

“ Silk and cotton manufacture led the way in using new machinery because they were recently imported industries so not bound down by tradition and legal restraint. Yarn production so improved that weavers became very prosperous. Cards with metal teeth were challenging the use of wood and horn cards with thistles in carding wool. Merchants who traveled all over the world and saw new selling opportunities and therefore kept encouraging the manufacturers to increase their production and improve their methods. Factory owners united to present suggestions to Parliament. ”

“ At present, our woollen manufacture is the noblest in the universe; and second to it is our metallic manufacture of iron, steel, tin, copper, lead, and brass, which is supposed to employ upwards of half a million of people. Our unmanufactured wool alone, of one year's produce or growth, has been estimated to be worth two millions sterling; and, when manufactured, it is valued at six millions more, and is thought to employ upwards of a million of our people in its manufacture ”

“ The merino, on its side, has its strongest defence in the singular fact that our woollen factories import their fine wools in the form of yarn. As soon as spinning-mills are established in the country, and the customs tariff combines the interests of the wool-grower with that of the manufacturer, there will be, in this country alone, more than half a million sterling at hand for the purchase of the wool produced by our Rambouillet flocks. ”

“ The imported Egyptian and Peruvian cotton is landed mainly at New York. Most of the cotton manufacture is carried on in the New England States, but there is a very rapid extension of cotton manufacture in the South.
Wool.—The wool of commerce is a term applied to the fleece of the common sheep, to that of certain species of goat, and to that of the camel and its kind. There is no hard-and-fast distinction between hair and wool, [32] but, in general, wool fibres have rough edges, much resembling overlapping scales which interlock with one another; hair, as a rule, has a hard, smooth surface. ”

“ In the more highly-developed branches of the textile and metal trades the division of processes appears at first sight more sharply marked than to-day. The carder, spinner, weaver, fuller in the cloth trade worked in the several processes of converting raw wool into finished cloth, related to one another only by a series of middlemen who supplied them with the material required for their work and received it back with the impress of their labour attached, to hand it out once more to undergo the next process. ”

“ The innovation was quickly adopted in France, in Germany, and in the United States, and these worsted suitings are so popular and so serviceable that the manufacture of wool goods may almost be said to have been revolutionized in the interval. There are to-day as many persons and looms employed in the worsted manufacture in England as in the woolen manufacture, and the substitution of worsted for woolen machinery has been going on at a rapid rate. ”