THE FLEECE AND THE LOOM:
AN
ADDRESS
BEFORE THE
Mtignr      oniiAtion o1f Wool 0t u  ^ ma i
AT
THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING IN PHILADELPHIA,
SEPT. 6, 1865.
BY JOHN  L. HAYES,
SECRETARY.
WITH SECRETARY'S REPORT AND TABLES.
BOSTON:
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON.
1866.








ADDRESS.
THE occasion of the first annual meeting of the " National
Association of Wool Manufacturers" would seem  to demand
from your Secretary something more than a meagre statement
of transactions of the Association necessarily limited by the
brief period  since its organization, and has suggested, as
the most suitable subject for an address which shall have a
wider scope than a mere official report, the consideration of
the national importance of the wool manufacture and the
means of developing it.
The principal articles of the wealth of a nation are the
yearly products of those industries which supply food and
clothing, and the instruments by which they are produced
and diffused.  The distribution of these products constitutes
the commerce of the world. Of the four branches of textile
industry which clothe mankind, the one to which we are
devoted is the most ancient, the most important to the inhabitants of the temperate regions, and, therefore, to the most
civilized portions of mankind, and at present the second in
commercial importance.  We cannot fail to benefit ourselves
by impressing upon our own minds even familiar facts and
considerations which tend to exalt our industry, and stimulate
us to advance and ennoble it; and it is the highest duty to
our cause to enlighten the public mind as to the influence
which this industry has had and may have in its future possible development, in promoting the wealth of the country and




comfort of tie people, in identifying the interests of distant
States, in sustaining the public credit, and securing a real
national independence.
Among the well-ordered adaptations of nature for the wellbeing of the human race, one of the most beneficent is that
which has supplied the temperate regions with an animal
fitted to produce at the same time food and the most essential
clothing of its inhabitants, and one whose culture is a most
valuable accessory to general agriculture. So early did man
avail himself of this gift, that we find sheep mentioned in the
most ancient writings, in  the first chapters of Genesis, in
the Persian Zend Avesta, in the Indian Vedas, and in the
Chinese Chou-king, and  represented  on the monuments of
Egypt.  According to Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the highest authiority on the origin of species, the specific source of our
domestic sheep is unknown.  All that is certain is, that the
present races originated in the East; the primitive names,
Bock and Bouc, found in the most ancient Asiatic languages,
being preserved in our term Buck.*
This species is endowed with a plasticity, so to speak, so
remarkable, that it is more susceptible of modification than
any other animal, except the dog,t so that " the breeder," as
Lord Somerville says, "may chalk out upon a wall a form
perfect in itself, and then give it existence.":  Hence peculiarities are developed in the coverings of different races produced by man, which make that distinctness and variety of
fabric whicl characterize the wool manufacture; and thus we
have the coarse Cordova and Donskoi wools for our carpets;
the noble electoral wools of Saxony and Silesia for our broadcloths; the strong middle wools of the Southdown and our
* Bulletin de la Socidtd Imperiale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, t. 6, p. 502.
t Cuvier. Animal Kingdom, translated by HI. McMurtrie. New York, 1831. Vol. i.
p. 199.: Bischoff on Wool, Woollens, and Sheep. London, 1842. p. 380.




5
native sheep for blankets; the soft, long, and finer merino
wools of France, Vermont, and Michigan, for thibets, delaines,
and shawls; the longer and  coarser combing wools of the
Cotswold and Leicester races for worsteds in their thousand
applications; the very long and bright-haired lustre wools of
Lincolnshire for alpaca fabrics; and, lastly, the precious silky
Mauchamp wool, the recent triumph  of French  agronomic
skill, rivalling even the Cashmere, for slawls, and the Angora,
for Utrecht velvets.*
The fibre of wool, rendered more perfect tlan any other by
the more complete chemical elaborations and assimilations of
the animal economy, has the most highly developed organic
structure.  While  the specific gravity of cotton is 1'47, of
linen 1'50, and of silk 1 30, the specific gravity of wool is but
1'26.t  It is, therefore, of all fibrous substances the best nonconductor, and its tissues tlhe lightest and warmest and most
healthful.  The perfection of the fibre is slown in its indestructibleness and durability.  Cotton and flax may be ultimately reduced to mere woody fibre. Wool is almost incapable
of mechanical destruction.  The existence of "shoddy," tle
term of reproacl to the woollen manufacturers, is the strongest
proof of tlle excellence and indestructibility  of its original
fibre.  Unlike silk, the product of an inferior animal organization, which is straiglt and entirely structureless, the fibre of
wool is crisped or spirally curled, and is made up of cells
of different kinds, - the interior forming the pith, and the exterior consisting of serrated rings imbricated over eacli other,
having under the microscope the appearance of a series of
thimbles with uneven edges inserted into each other; these serratures, as well as the spiral curls, being more or less distinct
according to the fineness of the fibre.  T We have here tlle
* See note on p. 55.
t Ure's Philosophy of Manufactures, p. 81, et seq.
t Youatt on Sheep, p. 94. Argument by George Harding in Supreme Court of
United States. Burr vs. Duryee et als. "Hat Body Case," p. 113. Report of Flax and
Hemp Commission p. 68.




6
cause of the invaluable quality of felting, to which we owe
our hats and broadcloths.  Flax and  cotton composed of
mere woody fibre are opaque and dull in aspect; woolly fibre,
when freed from the peculiar soapy oil or yolk which nourishes and protects its growth, has a natural polish which
protects it from soiling, and in some varieties gives a positively
lustrous beauty to its fabrics; the vegetable fibres receive
with difficulty permanent dyes, and sometimes curiously exhibit
their refractory nature in contrast with wool. The fibres, accidelltally detached from  cotton or hempen strings, with which
fleeces are sometimes bound, when incorporated with the woollen fabric, refuse the dye, and often ruin whole products of the
loom.  On the other hand, all animal fibres have ready affinities with the chemical agents of the dyer. Wool especially,
from its beautiful whiteness, itself the result of the amelioration of the original black sheep, is unrivalled in its facility for
receiving, and power of permanently retaining, color, as in
the famous woollen Gobelin tapestries,* where over a thousand
distinctly defined tones and hues are given to fabrics destined
to be indestructible as works of art.
Such are the qualities of fibre which have led every industrious nation to the culture of flocks as the first necessity of
its people; which have caused, in every manufacturing nation,
the demand to constantly exceed the supply; which have transplanted colonies from  the Cape of Good Hope to Australia,
and have carried the shepherd-emigrant to the steppes of Russia and the plains of La Plata;  and which have brought the
present production to such enormous figures as are given by
recent German estimates, I giving to Great Britain an annual
production  of 260,000,000 pounds of wool; to Germany,
* Chevreiul on Colors. Translated from the French by John Spanton. London,
1858. p. 113.
f See Southey on Colonial Wools, passim.: United-States Economist of June 10, 1865, which quotes from a writer in the
Year-book of German Cattle Breeders




7
200,000,000; France, 123,000,000; Spain, Italy, and Portugal,
119,000,000; European Russia, 125,000,000; making, in all
Europe, 827,000,000; in Australia, South America, and South
Africa, 157,000,000; the United  States, 95,000,000; the British  North-American  Provinces, 12,000,000;  Asia, at a  very
general estimate, 470,000,000; Northern  Africa, 49,000,000:
the  aggregate  production of wool in the whole  globe amounting, by these estimates, to  1,610,000,000, or a  pound  and  a
quarter to each  inhabitant, reckoned  at twelve  hundred  and
eighty-five million people.*
In tracing the history of the woollen manufacture, we find
that it had already attained considerable perfection with the
Romans, who employed this material in almost all their garments,t and with whom   sheep were  so abundant that a single
patrician bequeathed, by will, two hundred thousand to Augustus.4    The prices of the finer fabrics, however, were enormous.
* Bulletin of American  Geographical Society, 1865, p. 153.  Hon. Fred. A.
Conkling, in a paper on the Production and Consumption of Cotton, furnishes a table,
prepared by Prof. A. J. Schem, in which the populations of all the countries on the
globe using cotton exclusively are set down at 695,596,483. The populations which
use cotton only partially (and, consequently, use more or less wool) are set down at
519,656,253.
t "All the garments of both sexes were for many centuries made of wool exclusively; and, although silk and flax were introduced under the empire, they were never
adopted by any large portion of the community." - Ramsay's Elementary Manual of
Roman Antiquities. London, 1860. p. 238.
t Statistique des Peuples de Antiquitd, par M. Moreau de Jonnes, t. ii. p. 464.
The invaluable race of merino sheep is probably an inheritance of Roman civilization.
The race most prized by the Romans was called the Tarrentine, from Tarrentum, a town
settled by a Greek colony. They were also called Greek sheep. Their wool was of exceeding fineness; and they were protected by coverings of skins, and were also carefully
housed, and often combed, and bathed with oil and wine. Hence they were very delicate. Columella, the most eminent agricultural writer of the Romans, who lived in the
century before the Christian era, relates (De e Re Rstica, lib. vii. chap. 2) that his
paternal uncle, M. Columella, " a man of keen genius and an illustrious agriculturalist,"
transported from Cadiz to his farm-lands, which were in Bcetica, comprehending a part
of the present province of Estramadura, some wild rams of admirable whiteness brought
from Africa, and crossed them with the covered or Tarrentine ewes.  Their offspring,
which had the paternal whiteness, being put to Tarrentine ewes, produced rams with a finer
fleece. The progeny of these again retained the softness of the dam and the whiteness
of the sire and grandsire (maternam mollitien, paternum et avitum coloreme). Other agriculturalists undqnultedly imitated Columella, and a stronger constitution was thus imparted




8
The Roman purple worn by the senators was made from wools
of Italy, which, according  to  Pliny, were worth  four dollars
per pound  of twelve  ounces,* and which, of the same weigllt,
were  worth  one  hundred  and  sixty  dollars, when  colored
with  the Tyrian  dye.-   It is not strange, then, that Horace
should boast of a gift to his mistress of fleeces twice dyed with
the Tyrian murex.t   The world  has regretted, for many centuries, the loss of this imperial dye; but within  the  last ten
years, or no  later than  1856, chemistry  has  produced  from
aniline, a  product of worthless  coal tar, a purple  tint, resisting  light, alkalis, and  acids, ~ and  rivalling, upon  the  light
worsted zephyrs of our simple maidens, the hue of the patrician
mantle.
The woollen industry disappeared with the incursions of the
barbarians and  the  fall of the Roman  Empire, or languished
to the fine-fleeced but delicate sheep of ancient Italy. That this improvement was commenced in ancient Spain is further established by the testimony of Strabo, who says, in
his account of the geography of that country (lib. iii. chap. 2), that in his time, that of
the Emperor Tiberius, wool of great fineness and beauty was exported from Truditania,
a part of Bcetica; and that rams were sold in that province for improving the breed for a
talent each, or about one thousand dollars. When the Roman Empire was overrun by
the barbarians, the Tarrentine stock of Italy, being very tender, became extinct; but the
improved stock of Bcetica, living in the mountains, survived and perpetuated by the
Moors, who, skilled in the textile arts, could appreciate its value, still exists as the
merinos of Spain. If this view is correct, the merino race is the most important surviving relic of the material civilization of the Greeks and Romans. I shall be excused
for these remarks, which may be of little practical benefit, by those who appreciate the
sentiment of Niebuhr, the great historian of Rome, " that he who calls what has vanished
back into being, enjoys a bliss like that of creating."
lPliny's Natural History (lib. viii. chap. 73):  Centennos nummos, or a hundred sesterces, a sesterce of the value of four cents. -Allen's Classical Hand-book,
p. 110.
t Pliny's Natural History (lib. ix. chap. 63): Denariis mille, or a thousand
denarii, a denarius of the value of sixteen cents. —Allen's Classical Hand-book,
p. 110.
$: Muricibus Tyriis iterates vellera lanae, epod, 12-21.
~  It is no exaggeration to say that the introduction of this one color (the aniline
purple) has been a greater boon to the dyer than all the other inventions of the last ten
years put together. Not only is the hue yielded by the coal tar (purple) of a different
and better kind than any before known: it is likewise so fast, that it may, with indigo
blue and a few other colors, be considered as permanent.'- International Exhibition of
1862. Reports of Juries, Class 21.




9
only  in  domestic  manufacture, or in  the  abbeys where  the
monks of the dark ages still pursued the arts necessary for
their own comfort.  This decline in  the  arts continued  until
the time of the Crusades, which effected a complete revolution
in industry and commerce.  The Crusaders* found in Asia the
scattered fragments of the sciences and arts, and among others,
the processes for making those rich  fabrics which  had  formed
the most luxurious vestments and  furniture of the Romans.t
The States of Italy were the first which  availed themselves of
these discoveries, making the mechanical arts auxiliary to the
commerce which  they  had  revived  on  the  ancient course of
navigation  to  the  East.   In  the twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries, Florence, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa, had arrived at great
perfection in manufactures.  In those States we have the first
brilliant illustration  of the  influence  of the  industrial arts
upon the prosperity of the State.  Florence owed her splendor
to the woollen manufacture with which she supplied the world.t
Machiavelli alludes to the sound  of the moving  shuttle which
resounded in all her streets, and  he mournfully contrasts the
former cheerful hum  of a busy industry with the stillness prevailing, after the loss of this manufacture, through the plague
and  change  of traffic.~   It is no  little  boast for our industry that it was the source of the commerce and wealth whose
magnificent fruits still survive in the wonders of Florentine
art.: Mill's History of the Crusades, vol. ii. p. 346.
t Metellus Scipio, in the accusation which he brought against Cato, stated that
even in his time Babylonian (Asiatic) coverings for couches were selling for 800,000
sesterces, or $128,000. In the time of Nero, they had risen to four million sesterces,
$640,000.- Pliny's Natural History, lib. viii. chap. 73.
Some of the most ancient Asiatic forms survive unchanged in modern woollen
fabrics, such as the palm patterns of shawls. Specimens of Cashmere shawls, of the
kind called Espouline in France, collected, in the year 835, by Theodolphus, Bishop of
Orleans, are preserved in the archives of the Bishopric du Puy de Velay.-Pastoral
Life and Manufactures of the Ancients. NexV York, 1845. p. 94.: Millar's Historical Views of the English Government, vol. ii. p. 370. James's History of the Worsted Manufacture, p. 20.
~ Quarterly Review, January, 1821, p. 296.
2




10
The Netherlands, already advanced, as early as the tenth
century, in the manufacture of linen, which their soil produced
of admirable quality, readily appropriated from the Italians
the arts of manufacturing wool.  Favored by their internal
water-carriage, which gave them  supplies of material, and by
the middle station of their ports in the foreign navigation of
the maritime nations, they had outlets for their commodities
in all parts of Europe. They supplied themselves with wool
from England, to the vast amount of forty-five million pounds
in some years, and were aided, at one period, in obtaining wool
from Spain by the union of the sovereignties of Spain and the
Netherlands under Charles V.  Flanders continued for a long
period to supply Europe with all the woollen cloths and stuffs
demanded by luxury or taste, and was the veritable centre
from whicl the arts of fabricating woollens spread in time to
all the other industrious nations of Christendom.*  Flemish
wealth, derived mainly from this industry, was the envy of all
Europe.  Letters and the fine arts were encouraged and flourished, and the works of the Flemish, no less than the Florentine painters, survive to illustrate the great truth that the true
source of the highest culture of a nation, and of its only
immortal monuments, is its industrial prosperity.
This sketch of the industry of Rome, Italy, and Flanders, is
but introductory to that of the great nation firom which we
derive our language, institutions, and arts, and which, commanding a foreign trade of not less than twenty-one hundred
millions of dollars, and exporting annually her manufactures to
the amount of six hundred and fifty millions of dollars,f must
be first looked to for instruction and example by all nations
who seek their own industrial development.  We find that our
own industry has played no mean part in securing England's
commercial prosperity.
* Hume's History of England, vol. ii. p. 398. Motley's Rise and Fall of the Dutch
Republic, p. 36. Millar, suqr. cit.
t The Tariff Question, by Erastus B. Bigelow, p. 3..




II
The climate of England is wonderfully fitted for raising certain breeds of sheep, and it is probable that our British ancestors were employed in the domestic production of woollen
goods from the earliest period that they had emerged into civilization. Names derived from textile occupations must have
been early incorporated among English sirnames.  The name
rendered so familiar by its quaint calligraphy upon our Treasury notes, and that of New-England's great orator, are inherited from the ancient spinners and websters, or weavers of England. Nevertheless, the English produced only common stuffs,
and exported, in the eleventh century, more than half their
wools to the Netherlands.  In the early part of the fourteenth
century, the English are spoken of as " only shepherds and
wool merchants," and as " depending on the Netherlands, who
were the only wool-weavers in Europe.*  In the latter part of
the fourteenth century, the manufacture of wool received its
first impulse in England, and became firmly transplanted upon
her soil by the protecting influence of Edward III., who thus
added to his title of hero of Cressy, the prouder name of
father of English commerce.  The eyes of this enlightened
sovereign were opened to one of those simple facts which England now expects to be invisible to all other nations. He saw,
in the quaint words o               f the author of the   Golden Fleece,"
-"that the subjects of the Duke of Burgundy, receiving the
English wool at sixpence a pound, returned it, through the manufacture of that industrious people, in cloths at ten shillings,
to the great enriching of that State, both in revenue to their
sovereign and employment to their subjects. He at once
proposed how to enrich his people, and to people his new conquered dominions; and both these he designed to effect by
means of his English commodity, wool." t The first great step
* The Pensionary De Witt, quoted by Youatt. Sheep, their Breeds, &c., by William Youatt, p. 205.
t Smith's Memoirs of Wool, vol. i. p. 139. Youatt, p. 205.




12
of Edward was to attract to England a large number of Flemish families initiated in the arts of fabricating woollen goods;
and it is said that " he not only royally performed his promises
to them, but he likewise invested them with privileges and
immunities beyond  those of his native  subjects."   Seventy
families were brought over in the first year.  England became
speedily enriched by " this treasury of foreigners," as Fuller
styles them  in his Church History.  " Happy," says he,* " the
yeoman's house into which one of these Dutchmen did enter,
bringing  industry  and  wealth  along  with  him.  Such who
came in as strangers within doors, soon after went out bridegrooms and returned sons-in-laws, having married the daughters of their landlords who first entertained them; yea, those
yeomen in whose houses they harbored, soon proceeded gentlemen, gaining them estates to themselves, arms and worship to
their estates." During his great military preparations, Edward
summoned  a parliament, whose principal business it was to
make laws for the encouragement of the woollen manufacture
in  England.t   The exportation of rams was prohibited, and it
was decreed that no foreign cloth manufactures should be received, and that no one even should wear cloth made beyond
the sea.  Through these measures the manufacture became so
well established that the first export of English cloth dates from
this reign. A tax upon importations was substituted for the
prohibition, and  in  the  twenty-eighth  year of  this  reign
the exports of cloths were triple the imports."t
* Fuller's Church History. London, 1842. Vol. i. p. 419.
t Bischoff on Wool, &c., vol. i. p. 55.
t In the sixth and seventh years of Elizabeth, the woollen manufacture had so
much increased that the export of woollen goods to Antwerp alone, according to Camden, amounted to 750,0001.; and the whole value of the exports in 1564 was 1,200,0001.
(Smith, vol. i. p. 72), all fabricated of English wool. The vigor of the woollen trade at
this period is attributed by Smith to the abundance of gold and silver, in consequence
of the recent discovery of South America. Mr. Bigelow has shown that the chief
causes of the large increase of British exports since 1853, usually attributed to the freetrade acts, are found outside of the tariff laws, and principally in the greatly increased




13
For five centuries the system of protection to the woolmanufacturers, inaugurated by Edward III., was continued by
tile succeeding sovereigns and parliaments of England.  The
abstract of laws relating to the growers of wool and the manufacture thereof, made in 1772, enumerates three hundred and
eleven laws,* all tending  to one object, -the  encouragement of the manufacture.  With this object the exportation of
wool, after being  several times suspended, was definitely
prohibited in 1660, and so continued until the year 1825.1
The exportation of fuller's earth was forbidden.  The expor
tation of sheep was prohibited under the severest penalties; t
and even sheep-shearing could not be carried on within five
miles of the sea without the presence of a revenue officer.~
To secure the manufacturers against a monopoly of wool, the
number of sheep to be kept by one person was limited to two
thousand. II  One statute required that all black cloth and
mourning stuff worn at funerals should be made of British
wool alone; another, which was carried into full effect for one
hlundred  and thirty years, or nearly to the present century,
ordained that every person should be buried in a shroud composed of woollen cloth alone.T  The export of woollen cloth from
England to any foreign ports was permitted without a duty.**
The export of woollen goods from Ireland, or any of the English
Plantations in America, was prohibited.ff Upon the application
of the London and Canterbury woollen weavers, the wearing of
supply of gold, the annual produce of which has tripled since 1848. The correspondence between the periods of Elizabeth and Victoria is quite remarkable.- The Tariff
Question, p. 17.
* Bischoff, vol. i. p. 6. See Bigelow's Tariff Question, p. 17
t Porter's Progress of the Nation. London, 1851. p. 168.
t Youatt, p. 216.
~ Bischoff, vol. i. p. 244.
11 Youatt, p. 216.
~ Youatt, p. 224.
* First William and.Mary. Bischoff, vol. i. p. 85.
tt Tenth and Eleventh William III., chap. 10. Bischoff, vol. i. p. 89.




14
Indian calicoes was forbidden, and afterwards,* when it was
apprehended that the rising cotton manufacture might interfere with the great national industry of woollens, the use of
British printed calicoes was restricted to those only of a blue
color.t  Even the great commercial companies of England lent
their protecting influence. The powerful East-India Company,
possessing the power to open an almost boundless market for
woollen goods, made it an invariable rule that in the cloth
which it exported, both the material and manufacture should
be British.  This rule was inflexible till 1828.t  The arts of
diplomacy were not wanting on the part of England in aid
of her favorite interest.  At the close of the seventeenth century, Portugal, by interdicting the entry of foreign fabrics, had
succeeded in supplying her own population and Brazil with
woollen goods of her own manufacture.~  In 1703, England,
having in view principally the interests of the woollen manufacture, made the famous Treaty of Methuen, by which, in
consideration  of certain  favors to  Portuguese  wines, she
secured the free admission to Portugal of her woollen goods.ll
The English  historian  might well say, " this treaty  hath
proved very advantageous to England, in the woollen trade
particularly." ~  But this treaty was a mortal blow to Portugal.
Her manufacturing industry disappeared.  While all Europe
progresses, Portugal remains stationary.  The few of her products shown at the great Exhibition in 1862, were noticed only
for the melancholy representation which  they gave of her
industry.
The measures of protection which were most significant of
* Bischoff, vol. i. p. 90.
t Bischoff, vol. i. p. 97.
t Report of Committee of House of Lords, 1828. Examination of Mr. Ireland..~ Smith's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 394. "I appeal to every person,'' says Smith,
" that lived in Portugal from the year 1683 to 1703, during the time of the prohibition
whether Portugal did not make cloth enough for herself and Brazil."
II Smith, vol. i. p. 394.
S See Smollett's History of England, vol. i. p. 668.




the devotion of England to her manufacturing interests, were
the prohibition, for nearly a century and a half, of the exportation of British wool,* and  the admission of foreign wool at a
merely nominal, or very moderate duty, in spite of the violent
reclamations of the landed aristocracy. In a struggle of over
a hundred years with the manufacturers, the landed proprietors
had but one brief success, where they secured, for four years
only-viz., from  1819 to 1824-a tax upon foreign wool of sixpence per pound.t   It had become a deep-rooted  sentiment of
British statesmen of every party, that their highest duty to the
State was the encouragement of their own  manufactures, and,
first of all, those of wool, for so many years their chief export,
and peculiarly national staple, -" eminently the foundation,"
as it was called, "of' English riches,"   and  "the flower and
strength, the revenue  and  blood  of England." ~   The  "wool
sack," upon which the Lord Chancellor of England has sat for
ages as the President of the House of Lords, is a symbolical tradition of the importance which the nation has always attached to
the woollen industry. 11 It was declared by statute that "' wool
and  woollen  manufactures, cloth, serge, baize, kerseys, and
other stuffs, made  or mixed  with wool, are  the  greatest and
* " The one sole reason why England obtained the mastery of the ocean, and command of the world's business, is that she exported no raw material; and the reason why
the Southern States went into ruin by the route of rebellion is because they exported
nothing else." -The Western States; their Pursuits and Policy, by Dr. William Elder,
p. 20.
t In 1802, a duty of 5s. 3d. sterling per cwt. was laid upon foreign wool. This was
gradually raised till it reached 6s. Sd. per cwt. In 1819, the ministers wanted to raise
1,4001. by a tax on malt; and the landed aristocracy refused their assent unless a tax was
laid on wool, and the tax of sixpence a pound was imposed, the bill having been hurried
through Parliament before the manufacturers could be heard. Bischoff, vol. i. p. 452.
t Sir Josiah Childs. Smith's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 157.
~ Golden Fleece. 1656. Smith's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 139.
II " The antiquitie of wool within this kingdom lath been beyond the memorie of
man, so highly respected for those many Benefits therein that a customable use has
always been observed to make it the seat of our wise learned judges in the sight of our
noble Peers (in the Parliament House) to imprint the memorie of this worthy Commoditie within the minds of those firm supporters and chief rulers of the land."-John
Mlay, 1613. Smith's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 91.




16
most profitable commodities of the kingdom." * One of the
greatest English lawyers, Mr. Lawes, afterwards Lord Ellenborough, speaking of this interest before the House of Lords,
said,t "to state to your Lordships the extent of the manufacture, would be to state that it is at least a third in point of
export, that it is a fourth of the national income, as derived
from all its various sources.  Its magnitude is so important, its
connections with the vital interests of the country so close and
intimate, that it has been the principal object of attention in
the framing of the statutes upon your rolls from the earliest
period of any ascertained act of legislation of this country."
The encouragement of this industry had received the sanction
of the greatest of English names, even that of the founder of
experimental philosophy.  Lord Bacon, addressing the future
ministers of his sovereign, patriotically exclaims,: "Let us
advance the native commodities of our own kingdom, and
employ our own countrymen before strangeers.  Let us turn the
wools of the land into cloths and stuffs of our own growth.  It
would set many thousands to work; and thereby one of the
materials would, by industry, be multiplied  to  five, ten,
and many times to twenty-five times more in value, being
wrought."  It was by such lessons and traditions as these that
British legislators had become imbued with devotion to the
woollen trade, as with loyalty to the throne.  In the whole
history of the world there is no such example of persistent
national care, continued alike through all administrations, in
peace and in war, under commonwealth and monarchy; and
thus "fondled, favored, and cherished," to use the words of
Mr. Huskisson, ~ the woollen manufacture in England  has
advanced, with constantly increasing prosperity, only, in mod" Tenth and Eleventh William III., chap. 10.
t Bischoff, vol. i. p. 323.
t Bischoff, vol. i. p. 321. From Mr. Lawes' speech. I do not find the passage in'Lord Bacon's Works.
~ Bischoff, vol. i. p. 5.




17
ern times, overshadowed by its own offspring, the cotton manufacture, and still surpasses that of all other nations in the
quantity and value of its fabrics.
"The rapid growth and prodigious magnitude of the cotton
manufacture of Great Britain," for a century has not elapsed
since its infancy, have been called " the most remarkable phenomena in the history  of industry."*  But it should be
remembered that this industry was the natural offshoot from
the woollen manufacture.  Through the protection of four
centuries afforded to the woollen trade mainly, and in a less
degree, only because they were less important, to the linen
and silk trades, England had become a nation of spinners and
weavers, or of artisans subsidiary to them.  The textile crafts
had become, by hereditary transmission, as fixed as in the castes
of India. The skill and taste for textile industry was already
developed for application to a kindred fibre.  Some of the first
and most important inventions which have produced the wonderful results of the cotton manufacture, sprang directly from
that of woollens. To instance one only; John Kay, residing in
Colchester, where the woollen manufacture was then carried
on, devised the fly-shuttle, by which double the quantity of
cloth, and of a better quality, could be produced by each workman, and with less labor.  The Yorkshire clothiers were the
first to adopt his improvements, which form  a part of every
pover-loom  of the millions of silk, cotton, linen, and woollenlooms in all parts of the world.t  The commerce and capital
which supplied the raw material from  abroad for the rising
manufacture had grown up from the woollen trade principally;
but it had exerted a more important influence in making capitalists familiar witl the direct and incidental profits of manufacturing industry, and in assuring them  that the favor of
government, which had been extended for centuries to one,
*McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary, article Cotton.
t Brief Biographies of Inventors of Machines, by Bennett Woodcroft, p. 3.
3




18
would never be wanting for a kindred interest. Hence capital
flowed by a natural transition into the new channel, and invention found a fresh field for its creative skill under the patent
system which England had inaugurated as a part of her protective policy. The subject which I have proposed for this
address, —the national influence of our own peculiar manufacture,-finds its most brilliant example in the history of
English industry, which no less illustrates the more important
truth, that any industry, thoroughly incorporated in the national existence, will have new offshoots and unexpected developments, and may enrich a nation even more than by its own
fruits, in opening fresh sources of productive power.
Towards the close of the last century the woollen manufacture received in its turn the inventions first applied to cottonspinning. They were, first of all, the great discovery of Watt,
which furnished a motive-power everywhere applicable; the
roller-spinning of Paul, adopted by Arkwright, which furnished
an automatic mechanism, instead of muscular force, which
drew and twisted the fibre in a continuous thread; the jenny
of Hargreaves, which drew at once from ten to sixty or seventy
threads; the mule of Crompton, which increased the power of
the spinner a hundred fold; and the power-loom of Cartwright,
which quadrupled the power of the weaver.* All these inventions, and what was equally important, the factory system of
Arkwright, were applied, upon a large scale, to the woollen
manufacture, first by Mr. Gott, who added the gig-mill for raising the wool on the cloth, and shearing-frames worked also by
power. These improvements gave a vast extension to the
manufacture. The use of woollen tissues increased with the
low price of production, which continued to advance with
accelerated progress. At the end of the eighteenth century
Great Britain already consumed in her fabrics ninety-four millions of pounds of her own wool, and eight millions imported.
* Woodcroft, p. 3, et seq.




19
In 1828, the number of sheep in Great Britain had increased
one-fifth, and the average weight of the fleeces in equal proportion.*  Mr. Bernoville, in his admirable work on the "Industry of Combed Wools," published in the report made to the
French government on the labors of the French Commission,
at the Universal Exposition of 1851, estimates the number
of pounds of wool in Great Britain in 1851 at two hundred
and eight million pounds, so that the production doubled in
fifty years.  This increase of production was caused partly by
the increase of the number of sheep, but principally by the
increase in the weight of fleeces.  Within that period a genuine transformation has taken place in the English races. To
attain the utmost possible weight of mutton, sheep are fed to
their utmost capacity, and the increase of flesh is accompanied
by a corresponding increase of wool, which, losing in fineness,
has gained in strength, length, and brilliancy.  While the
domestic production has made such extraordinary progress,
the importation has increased with equal rapidity.  The eight
million pounds in 1801 have risen successively from  sixteen
million pounds in 1821 to fifty-six millions in 1841, to eightytllree millions in 1851, having increased tenfold in fifty years.
In 1859, the importation had reached one hundred and thirtythree millions.t
There are no official statements of the amount or value of
the whole production of British manufactures, or of the population employed in them; we must, therefore, rely upon the
very general estimates of the best authorities, which, however,
differ so widely that we can merely approximate the totals of
production in the woollen manufacture. Mr. Bernoville, in the
work above quoted, estimating the mean value of the domestic
production of wool in Great Britain at one fanc twenty cen* Porter's Progress of the Nation. London, 1851. p. 168. Industrie des Laines
peigndes, par M. Bernoville, p. 11. Travaux de la Commission Franqaise, vol. iv.
t Bigelow's Tariff Question, Appendix, p. 198.




20
times the pound, and the imported wool at one franc seventy
centimes, places the whole value of wool employed by British
industry at 370,000,000 francs, or $74,000,000.  He estimates
that the value of this wool is increased once and a half times
by the manufacture, and that the annual production of woollen
fabrics in 1851 was 925,000,000 francs, or $185,000,000, alnd
the domestic consumption 679,000,000 francs, or $135,000,000.
Mr. Redgrave, one of her Majesty's Inspectors of Factories,
estimates the value of the British woollen and worsted manufactures in 1856 at $183,492,725, and the domestic consumption in Great Britain, $111,366,160, for each person of its
population at $4.25.*  Mr. Simmonds, the editor of Ure's
" History of the Cotton Manufacture," estimates the total production of woollen goods in 1860 at $160,000,000, and the
domestic consumption at one-half that amount.  This estimate
appears too small, and that of Mr. Redgrave seems most reliable.  Judging from the progress of exports, sixty millions of
dollars in 1856, and eighty millions in 1860, the value of the
woollen manufactures in the United Kingdom cannot be short
of $200,000,000.  The number of persons employed in the
woollen industry, in all its ramifications, was estimated in 1841
at 245,000 persons.  This number must have vastly increased
in twenty years.  Mr. Bernoville estimates them at 400,000
in 1851. Statistics have been procured, from time to time,
by the inspectors of factories in reference to establishments
under their supervision.  They give tle number employed
in tlle wool manufacture in 1856, at 79,091; and in the
worsted manufacture at 87,794; a total of 166,885. Tlie number employed in 1835 is stated at only 71,274.  The number
had more tlan doubled in twenty years, although the progressive employment of mechanical means has lhad a tendency to
diminishi the number of hands. Precise data are given only in
* Bigelow's Tariff Question. Appendix, p. 199.




21
relation to establishments subject to tlhe provisions of the Factory Acts, which make the whole number employed in all the
textile manufactures only 682,497.  Mr. Redgrave estimates
that there are 887,369 persons employed in textile fabrics, not
subject to the provisions of the Factory Acts, which two classes
have dependent upon them  at least 3,000,000 unemployed
persons, representing a total of 4,568,082 persons.  Those
employed in the woollen and worsted manufactures constitute
very nearly a quarter of the whole number enumerated under
the provisions of the Factory Acts, which would give to the
woollen manufactures a population, depending upon them, of
over one million.  This immense progress in the manufacture
of wool has been due principally to the advance in the manufacture of combing wools or worsted, which now employ directly
a larger number than fabrics of carded wool.  This progress
is best illustrated by the rapid increase of population around
the manufacturing centres of tlhe worsted trade.  In the West
Riding, where there was only a population of 593,000 inhabitants in 1801,'it had risen, in 1841, to 1,154,000; it had
increased at Halifax from 63,000 to 130,000; at Huddersfield
from 14,000 to 38,000; at Leeds from 53,000 to 152,000. It
is still more remarkable at Bradford, the great centre of the
worsted trade.  At the commencement of this century, when
this town had a population of only 13,000 souls, all the wool
was spun and woven in private houses of the workmen.  In
1821, Bradford had doubled the number of its inhabitants,
which were 26,000.  By the introduction of power-looms in
1834, and afterwards the use of cotton warps in woollen fabrics, and the employment of alpaca and Angora goat's wool, the
manufacturing industry was so developed that it sustained in
1851 a population of 103,000, an increase of ninety thousand
in half a century.*  Such an increase in this country would
* Bernoville's Industrie des Laines peigndes, p. 22. James's History of Worsted
Manufacture, p. 611, et. ser.




22
appear by no means remarkable; but in England, where the
question has been for centuries, how to employ the present
population of each year, the increase is truly marvellous.
One of the most interesting questions in the study of the
philosophy of manufactures is their influence upon the comfort of mankind in diminishing the cost of production.  The
amounts and values of British exports are instructive upon
this question.
One of the largest exportations of woollen tissues from England occurred in the year 1815, after relations had been established with this country, which had been interrupted by the
war.  It amounted to ~9,381,000 in value, and 1,482,000
pieces, and twelve millions of yards. In 1851, it amounted to
2,637,000 pieces, and sixty-nine million yards. The number of
pieces, comprising cloths, damasks, and stuffs in general, had
almost doubled; and the number of yards, consisting principally of articles of wool and cotton, had more than quintupled.
Yet the total value in 1851 was only ~9,856,000, exceeding
the exportation of 1815 about half a million.  The increase of
cheapness consisted principally in fabrics of wool combined
with cotton.*
This progress in the cheapness of production has continued
since 1851.  It is estimated in the report of the International
Exhibition of 1862,t from well authenticated data, that although there was a clear and established advance of twentyfive to twenty-eight per cent in the cost of wool between the
prices of 1851 and 1862, the manufacturers had cheapened
the prices of goods between the two periods from seven and a
half to ten per cent, the quality and weight being the same.
It is, perhaps, unnecessary to say that this increased cheapness
of production is no peculiarity of English manufactures. The
facts here mentioned illustrate a result which is sure to follow
* Bernoville, p. 18.
t International Exhibition of 1862. Report of Juries, Class 21.




23
from   any well established  manufacturing industry.  An increased cheapness of production in England has been effected
by two other causes, one of which certainly will be regarded
by consumers with less favor. The first is, the use of cotton
warps, which are used as a vehicle to extend the surface of
wool to such a degree that millions of pounds of cotton are, as
it were, plated  with  this  material.  Vast establishments in
Lancashire are employed solely in making cotton warps, to be
woven with wool into what are called  union  fabrics.*   The
second is, the combination of shoddy with wool.  Twenty-five
years ago, woollen rags were worth about ~4  per ton, and
were used only for manure.  They are now worth, in England,
~40 per ton, to be converted again into clotli. It is estimated
that, in the neighborhood  of Leeds, 7,000,000  to  8,000,000
yards of cloth, of the value of $15,000,000, are annually manufictured from  this material; and, that if the supply of shoddy
were stopped, it would close one-third of the woollen mills in
the United Kingdom, and bring distress upon the West Riding, in Yorkshire, as great as that lately suffered in Lancashire from  the want of cotton.  It is disclosed in the report
on  the  London  Exhibition  of 1862, that sixty-five  million
pounds  of  shoddy  are  annually  consumed  in  England, a
greater quantity  than the whole wool product in the United
States, estimated at 60,264,913 pounds by the census of 1860! f
It is one of the advantages of depending upon foreign importation for our goods, that we are in blissful ignorance of their
* Mr. Anderson, a gentleman of much experience in English wool, stated before an
agricultural club in England, that a single hogget fleece weighing twenty pounds, with
a length of staple of about seventeen inches, "when used in manufacture to its utmost
extent, as an admixture with cotton to fabricate the finest alpaca fabrics, would suffice
to make upwards of twelve pieces, each forty-two yards in length, and very possibly
might be extended to sixteen pieces, or six hundred and seventy-two yards."- Ohio
Agricultural Report, 1863, p. 224.
I would, in this connection, invite attention to the most valuable and admirable
papers and communications on sheep, husbandry and wool, furnished for these reports
by Mr. Klippart, Secretary of the Ohio State Board of Agriculture.
t Eighth Census of the United States, vol. Agriculture, p. 86.




24
origin, and are not shocked with the consciousness of being
clad in the cast-off habiliments of a Polish Jew or an Italian
beggar.
I will close this sketch by some general remarks upon the
character of the Britisl industry in woollens.  Tlhe wlhole
energies of British manufacturers are directed to supply the
masses with goods of tlhe utmost cheapness.  They do not seek
so much excellence in the fabrics as marketable products.  It
was remarked by continental observers, at the two great expositions, that although fabrics of wonderful perfection were exhibited, they were not specimens of the ordinary work of their
spindles and looms.  The colors of their goods are excellent,
much better than their designs; but, above all, they surpass in
the art of dressing their fabrics so as to conceal their defects
and make them  attractive to purchasers.  Their inventive
capacity is shown, particularly in the application to new uses
of the vast variety of raw materials which their extensive commerce supplies, but, more than all, in mechanical improvements for substituting the iron fiame for the human hand.
The breaking up of existing machinery and the replacing of
new is the marked feature in the present era of British manufactures.  The abundance and cheapness of capital, cheap food
under the change in the corn laws, the free admission of raw
materials, a well founded confidence in friendly legislation,
and the establishment of mercantile houses in all parts of the
world, sustain England in the war which she is waging unceasingly against the manufacturing industry of all other nations;
and would render a strife against her utterly hopeless, without
tlhe barriers of countervailing duties which tle instinct of selfpreservation has placed around all other industrious nations.
The history of the woollen industry of France, the second in
tlhe amount of its productions, and the first in the general
excellence of its products, exhibits the important part wlich
this industry performs in developing the national prosperity,




25
and how it may flourisl or decay under the favorable or
adverse policies of governments.
This industry received its first impulse in France, near the
close of the sixteenth century, from the celebrated edict of
Nantes, which restored to that country the Protestants, wlio
had become the most cnlightened merchants and skilful workmen in Europe.  They brought from  Germany, and the Low
Countries where they had wandered, the arts of spinning,
weaving, and dyeing woollens, and founded the first establishments for making woollen cloths.  The infant manufactures,
slightly advanced by the agricultural improvements of Sully,
who introduced some important breeds of sheep, and, languishing under the inauspicious administration of Riclelieu, were
finally planted in their present flourishing seats by Colbert, the
illustrious minister of Louis XIV.  Under his administration,
the manufactures of new products created by the arts of Italy,
Holland, and Germany, were attracted to the French soil by
seductive offers made to foreign artisans.  The woollen manufacture received his special attention.  He obtained, from
Louis XIV., the disposal of fifty thousand livres to be distributed
in encouraging this industry.  At this period, Holland alone
had attained any perfection in the manufacture of fine cloths.
Colbert attracted Gosse Van Robais from  Holland, by enormous concessions, to fabricate - as his patent, signed by the
King, declared —fine cloths, after the fashion of Spain and
IHolland.  Of this act Thiers says, —" When Louis XIV.
struck down the Spanish power, Colbert, at his side, executed
conquests more important, by introducing the manufacture of
cloths into France."*  Not content with naturalizing foreign
skill, he imposed heavy duties upon foreign manufactures, and
attempted the amelioration of flocks by imported breeds; and
it is admitted that France owes to his wise acts and counsels
* Industrie des Laines fouled6, par M. J. Randoing, p. 38.
4




26
the most important developments of her industry.*  It is with
great justice, then, that our own great political economist,
whose works, translated into five languages, have been adopted
as text-books in the universities of the continent of Europe,'has selected the name of the French financier to designate that
school of statesmanship which aims to develop, by protection
and encouragement, the industrial wealth of a nation.t
The woollen interest became again depressed under Louis
XV., in whose reign those arts alone flourished which administered to pleasure and luxury. The manufacture revived under
Louis XVI., in whose reign merino sheep were naturalized in
France, to be again struck down by a fatal error of administration.  In 1786, a treaty was concluded between France and
England, which admitted into the latter country French productions of luxury and taste, in exchange for an analogous
concession for the admission to France of English goods of
apparently small price, but which, suiting all classes, are the
essential bases of the industry of a people.  This treaty was
the most fatal blow that the textile manufactures had ever received.  England, favored as we have seen by continued protection, had already made great progress in the capacity of
manufacturing at comparatively low prices.  Before the lapse
of the second year from this treaty, France was so flooded by
English importations of cloth that she ceased to attempt even
to supply her own consumption.  Although the policy of 1786
was speedily retraced, and  protection  restored, the French
manufactures had not recovered  from  the  shock when  the
revolution completed the prostration of all industry.f
See the Works of Mr. H. C. Carey, passim.
t Smith, in his Memoirs, speaks thus instructively of this great statesman: "Monsieur Colbert, erecting manufactures of wool in all parts of France, and prohibiting all
the English woollen manufactures to be imported among them, in a few years set the
poor to work throughout that kingdom;... the first consequence of which was,
that the King of France saw all his subjects clothed, however indifferently, with the
manufactures of their own country, who, but a few years before, bought all their
clothes from England. - Vol. ii. p. 290.
4 Randoing, Industrie des Laines fouleds, p. 21. Manual of Social Science, by H.
C. Carey, p. 209,




27
No sooner had the first Consul, Bonaparte, grasped, with a
firm hand, the reins of State, than he resolved to develop upon
the French soil all the elements of wealth concealed within its
bosom. He wished to appropriate for France all sciences, arts,
and industries.  Made a member of the Institute, he uttered
this noble sentiment: -"The true power of the French Republic should consist, above all, in its not allowing a single new
idea to exist which it does not make its own." *  To learn the
necessities and resources of the nation, he called upon savans,
painters, and artisans, to adorn with their productions the vast
hall of the ancient Louvre. From this epoch a new career was
opened to the industry of France, which found its most magnificent protector in the chief of the State. Napoleon said:" Spain has twenty-five millions of merinos; I wish France to
have a hundred millions."t To effect this, among other administrative aids, he established sixty additional sheepfolds to those
of Rambouillet, where agriculturalists could obtain the use of
Spanish rams without expense. By the continental blockade,
he closed France and the greater part of Europe against English importations; and the manufacturers of France were
pushed to their utmost to supply, not only their domestic, but
European consumption.  They had to replace, by imitating
them, the English commodities to which the people had been
so long accustomed.  The old routines of manufacturing were
abandoned, and the reign of the Emperor became, in all the
industrial arts, one long series of discoveries and progress.
Napoleon saw that the conquest of the industry of England was
no less important than the destruction of its fleets and armies.
He appealed to patriotism, as well as science and the arts,,
to aid him in his strife with the modern Carthage. Visiting
the establishment for printing calicoes of the celebrated Oberhampf, Napoleon said to him, as he saw the perfection of
* Bulletin de la Socidtd Imperiale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, 2d Serie, t. i. p. 665.
t Bernoville, p. 133.




28
the fabrics, -  Nous faisons tous deux la guerre d I'Angleterre, mais je crois que le meilleure est encore la votre" We are both of us carrying on a war with England; but I
think that yours, after all, is the best."    These words," says
M. Randoing, " so flattering and so just, were repeated from
one end of France to the other; they so inflamed the imaginations of the people, that the meanest artisan, believing himself
called upon to be the auxiliary of the great man, had but one
thought, the ruin of England." *
The fabrications of cloths attained such high perfection during this period, that since then the only progress has been the
modification of details.  During this period the chemical arts
of dyeing attained the excellence so characteristic of French
colors; and, during this period, the mechanical genius of Jaquard, aided by the practical skill of Depouilly, produced the
loom which has been justly regarded as the greatest invention
in the art of weaving of the present century, and has only been
eclipsed by the great achievement of our own inventor, who
made the Jaquard loom automatic.t  The profits acquired by
successful manufacturers, during this period of prosperity,
were immediately applied to the erection of vast factories, and
Mulhouse, St. Quentin, Tarare, and Roubaix, at present renowned seats of the woollen manufacture, received the elements of progress and wealth which they have not since ceased
to develop.  Of all the conquests of Napoleon, the greatest by
far, the industrial independence of France, is still secure..  And
the assaults of British free trade are still unavailing against
* Randoing, p. 11.
t For an account of Mr. Bigelow's great invention, see Preliminary Report of Commissioner of Patents, 1863. The report says, " It now presents a machine which is admitted to be unsurpassed by any thing which the mechanical genius of man has ever
devised." p. 11.: "Protection, the industrial creation of Napoleon, the most precious and principal
cause of his conquests." Industrie des cotons, par M. Mimirel, President du Council
General des Manufactures de France, etc. p. 5.




29
the bulwarks of protection established through his maxims and
example.*
Thanks to the immortal founder of the industrial glory of
France, she has never been hoodwinked by the specious philosophy of British free trade.  She saw, when Mr. Huskisson
suppressed the prohibitory duty upon French silk, that it was
only because he could not suppress the contraband trade, and
because the duty of twenty-five per cent was a more efficient
protection of British silks.  "When the British Parliament
applaud the absolute enfranchisenent of commerce," says
Baron Dupin, il 1852, " they clap their hands, and these hands
are covered with English gloves, whose inferiority is protected
against foreign gloves by a duty of twenty-five per cent."
Whenever a new manufacture, not provided for in the tariff
regulations, has been attempted, the French have seen it
crushed by British capitalists, who had been instructed by Mr.
Brougham, that "England could afford to incur some loss on
the export of English goods, for the purpose of destroying foreign manufactures in their cradle." t  "Three times," says
Dr. Sacc, "since the commencement of the present century,
have attempts been made in France to spin the wool of the
Angora goat.  Each attempt has failed; for, as soon as the
products appeared in the market, the English spinners lowered
the prices from twenty to twenty-five per cent, and rendered
competition impossible.". The Anglo-French Treaty of 1860,
although often referred to as evincing a change in the protective policy of France, still carefully guarded her manufactures.
The Leeds Chamber of Commerce, the highest authority in
relation to woollens, regarded the duties under that treaty as
prohibitory.  Lord Grey asserted, without contradiction, in the
* Tableau Statistique des Industries, Franvaises du coton, de laine et de la soie,
par Baron Charles Dupin, p. 9. Travaux de la Commission Franvaise, t. iv.
t Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1861. Agriculture, p. 17.: Bulletin de la Socidtd Imperiale Zoologique, &c., t. v. p. 579.




30
House of Lords, that "France retained her whole system  of
navigation laws.  She bound herself to no duties on her manufactured goods lower than thirty per cent in the first instance,
and twenty-five per cent afterwards.  The only articles, on
which she made any reduction, were coal and iron, which she
wanted in order to stimulate her manufactures." *
The condition of the woollen manufacture, under this system,
must be regarded with no little interest. The number of sheep
in France in 1851, according to Mr. Bernoville, who is my principal authority in the following statements, - was 40,000,000.
Each fleece, upon an average, comprising the lambs, weighing,
washed upon the back, about 1-1-  kilogramme, the 40,000,000 of sheep give the number of 72,000,000 kilogrammes,
158,832,000 lbs., as the whole weight of domestic wool, worth, at
a minimum of 3 francs 50 centimes per kilogramme, the average
of the qualities, 252,000,000 francs. The mean of importation
duty paid for these years was of the value of 55,000,000 francs,
making the total value of wool employed 307,000,000 francs.
The value of the raw wool, which enters into the average French
tissues, is estimated at one-third of the price of the tissues when
they enter into the hands of the consumer.  The value of the
raw wool, tripled, is 921,000,000 francs, or $184,200,000. The
mean of exportation for three years before, including 1851, was
116,000,000 francs, or $23,200,000. There remained 805,000,000 francs, or $161,000,000, as the value of the domestic consumption in France in 1851.
The average of French exportation of woollens from 1827 to
1836, was 38,000,000 francs. The exportation of the same
fabrics in 1851 was 122,500,000 francs. Thus there was an
increase of exportations in twenty years of 220 per cent.
The exportations of woollens from England were, in 1830,118,000,000 francs, or $23,600,000; in 1851, 246,000,000 francs,
* Bigelow's Tariff Question, p. 38.
t Industrie des Laines peigndes, p. 135, et seq.




31
or $49,200,000.  The increase in twenty years was 110 per
cent.  While England had doubled her exportations, France
had tripled hers, besides supplying her domestic consumption.
Thus the acknowledged protective system of France had accomplished more for her foreign commerce than the so-called
free trade of England had done for British exterior consumption. Assured by the increased prosperity of her manufactures, of the domestic consumption of all her native wools,
France, while continuing the duties on her manufactures, has
diminished the duty on raw materials.  In 1861, her exportations of woollens amounted to 188,000,000 francs; in 1862,
221 000,000 francs; and, in 1863, to 283,000,000 francs, or
$56,000,000.
I have been able to obtain estimates of the number of persons employed in only one branch of the French woollen
manufacture, that of combing wool. Mr. Bernoville* estimates
that France, in 1851, employed constantly 800,000 spindles inl
the fabrication of combing wool; that each spindle produced
twelve kilogrammes of yarn, representing  nineteen  kilogrammes of washed wool, worth at least 5 francs 25 centimes
per kilogramme.  At that, the 800,000 spindles consumed 15,200,000 kilogrammes (33,431,200 lbs.), worth, in round numbers, 80,000,000 francs. He estimates that the various manipulations which the wool undergoes in fabrication, including
the selling, adds two and one-half times to the original value
of the wool, making the total cost of wool, and fabrication of
combing wool, 280,000,000 francs.  The 800,000 spindles produce 9,600,000 kilogrammes of yarn, representing 8,400,000
fleeces, of which 5,800,000 are produced by French sheep. It
is ascertained, from the statistics of M. Billiet, that this wool,
from the shepherd to the spinner inclusive, employs 51,000
workmen, who receive a total salary of 26,182,976 francs. It
is calculated that two looms occupy five persons, and each wea* Industrie des Laines peignues, p. 139.




32
ver uses about eighty kilogrammes of spun wool. The 9,600,000 kilogrammes give employment to 120,000 looms, whicl
gives the number of 300,000 workmen employed in weaving.
It is estimated that in dyeing, bleaching, printing, and selling,
20,000 more persons are employed. Estimating the average
pay of each of the 320,000 workmen, exclusive of the spinners,
at 1 fianc 25 centimes a day for three hundred days' work,
and adding the salary included in the spilnning, Mr. Bernoville
arrives at the sum of 146,000,000 francs distributed among
371,000  men, women, and children, which  would  allow
393 francs 55 centimes, or $78.70 to each person. These
estimates furnish data by which we may arrive at a general
estimate of the number employed in all the branches of the
woollen manufacture.  The value of the fabrication of combing wool was 280,000,000 only of her 921,000,000, the estimated value of the whole fabrication; leaving a value of
641,000,000 in other branches.  These branches, by tlle rates
established in the estimates above given, would employ 849,000
persons, making nearly a million and a quarter as the number
of persons directly employed in the woollen manufactures of
France.
In studying the characteristics of the French manufacturers,
and the part they have taken in advancing the general progress of the woollen industry, and in adding to the means of
consumption, we observe that they have not attained that
economy of production which so eminently distinguishes the
British manufacturers.  Supplied with abundant labor, supported by cheap sustenance, the French manufacturers have
been content to remain far behind tlhe British and Americans
in the substitution of machinery for human labor. But tlle
tendency of machinery, as they think, is to give mediocrity to
manufactured products; and the French aim at the utmost
excellence in their works. The individual skill or handicraft
of tile workman is developed to the utmost extent. All ma



33
chinery is rejected which will not surpass the manipulations of
the hand.  Spinning, the foundation of good textures, is carried by them  to the utmost perfection.  Yarns, spun from
combed or carded wool by the rival nations, exhibited at the
great London exposition, were carried ten, twenty, and even
thirty numbers higher by French spinners with the same
wool.*  They excel equally in ameliorating raw materials, in
making them  softer and more flexible.  The French, in tle
textile arts, are creators; while the English are exploiteurs.
The one nation invents new fabrics, new combinations of old
materials, new styles and patterns, or what, in a word, are
called French novelties.  The other works up these ideas,
copies, transforms, dilutes, and, above all, cheapens.  Most
other nations follow the English example, and our own is as
yet no exception.  To specify the contributions of inventive or
creative genius of France to the woollen industry, we must
class, first among the machines, the Jaquard, already referred
to, whose wonderful products are seen in all figured textures;
and next, the machinery for combing wool and also cotton, of
Heilman, of Mulhouse, an invention which possesses interest,
not only on account of its vast importance, but the circumstances of its origin.  The most novel and valuable part of
this machine, as stated by the inventor, which lie had long
unsuccessfully endeavored to obtain, was ultimately accomplished by carrying into mechanical operation a suggestion
which occurred to him whilst watching, his daughters combing
their hair.  He was at that time meditating on the hard fate
of inventors generally, and the misfortunes which befell their
families.  This circumstance, says Mr. Woodcroft, being communicated to Mr. Elmore, of the Royal Academy, was embodied by him in a picture which was exhibited, and greatly
admired, at the Royal Academy in 1862.t  We all practise or
* Bernoville.
t Brief Biographies of Inventors, &c., p. 45.
5




34
use French creations without suspecting their origin.  Before
1834 the colors of all fulled cloths were uniform.  At tlat
time Mr. Bonjean, of Sedan, conceived the idea, to give beauty
to the productions of his looms, of uniting in the same stuff
different tints and figures.  His thought was that the domain
of production would be as illimitable as that of fantasy, which
was the name given to his goods. He was the originator of the
product and name of fancy cassimeres, by far the most important branch of our own cloth manufacture.*  The French,
already skilled  in making light gauzes of silk, first made
bareges in 1818; t a fabric with a weft of wool and warp of
silk.  The English imitated the fabric by substituting cotton
for silk in the warp.  In 1826, Mr. Jourdain first produced, at
the establishment of Troixvilles, that invaluable fabric, mousseline de laine, made of fine wool, for printing. j  In 1831, the
manufacture and printing of this tissue was fully developed.
In 1838, lie also created challis, made of a warp of silk organzin and a weft of fine wool. ~  In 1833, first appeared at Paris,
simultaneously introduced by three French houses, that fabric
so appropriate for the consumption of the masses, the mousseline
de laine, with cotton warps.  The English adopted tlhe manufacture in 1834-5, and it prevails in every manufacturing
nation.  This fabric, which is unquestionably a French idea,ll
has been an inestimable blessing.  Its products are counted by
millions of pieces, and it enables the most humble female to
clothe herself more comfortably and becomingly, and as cheaply, with wool, as she could thirty years ago with cotton.  In
1858, plain bareg es were introduced, for printing.  These had
before been made of colored threads; at the same time, balsorine, having the effect of alternate fabrics of cloth and gauze,
was created in wool in imitation of a flaxen fabric.  T The
* Randoing. Industrie des Laines touldes, p. 23.
t Bernoville, p. 179.:               Bernoville, p. 186.
~ Bernoville, p. 186.                       1i Bernoville, p. 187.
~ Bernoville, p. 188.




foulards, with a warp of silk and weft of English combing, were
introduced about this time at St. Denis.* The fabric, however, most appreciated by female taste, and the most unrivalled
of modern woollen textures, and the only one not degraded by
imitation, is that beautiful material which derives its name from
the fleece of which it is made, the French merino. This tissue
was first made at Rheims, in 1801, by a workman named
Dauphinot Pallotan.t  The invention, for which a patent was
asked, whether successfully or not is not known, consisted solely in the adaptation of a peculiar type of wool, and not in the
fabric. I shall refer to this fabric in another connection, to show
that the intelligent skill of the agriculturalist is no less important than the genius of the artisan in developing the manufacturing prosperity of a nation.
The creative genius of the French is more conspicuous
in their arts of design and color, as applied to all textile
products.  There is an unlimited application of these arts
and a boundless field for novelties, in the modern use of
printed woollen goods.  All the manufacturers of France,
in producing new  styles of fabric or figure, nourish their
tastes by Parisian ideas, the inheritance of the ancient splendors of Versailles. Says Mr. Bernoville: "At Paris, each consumer is a judge, and becomes a guide to the merchant
and manufacturer.  The Parisians appreciate only what is
good, and consecrate only what is beautiful. The grisette as
well as the grande dame, the artisan as well as the dandy, has
received, and practises, without knowing it, the traditions of
art." t  Although important commercial houses are now established for the sale of designs elaborated in this school, there is
no manufacturer in Europe who scruples to copy French patterns.  We have even so framed our patent laws that, while
protecting all other foreign works of invention, we might appro* Bernoville, p. 185.  t Bernoville, p. 195.:   Bernoville, p. 175.




36
priate with impunity the productions of the Parisian pencil
and pallet.
Thus, by importation as well as imitation, all over the world,
the true lovers of the beautiful, as well as " the sophists, economists, and calculators," whose advent, upon the fall of Maria
Antoinette, is so pathetically lamented by Burke,* acknowledge
France, so gracefully symbolized by Eugenie, the empress of
taste and fashion.
I shall not attempt to review the woollen industries of the
other manufacturing countries of Europe, and will confine
myself to a brief notice of four other nations, the most distinguished for their resistance to the commercial policy of
England.  In the reports of the Bradford Chamber of Commerce for 1864-5, kindly sent me by our consul at Sheffield,
Mr. Abbott, who has charge also of the vice-consulates of Bradford, Leeds, and Huddersfield, I find bitter complaints of the
tariff regulations of Austria, Sweden, Spain, and Russia, as
affecting, most injuriously, the woollen trade of Bradford. The
Austrian tariff is spoken of as presenting "features of the
most objectionable character," while " the duties are almost
prohibitory, and unjust to England."  The Swedish tariff is
referred to as having " the unfortunate distinction of disputing
with Spain the debatable honor of being the highest in the
world, the Russian alone excepted."   Of Russia, it is said,
" the importation of manufactured tissues is practically prevented by a scale of duties higher than any in the world;"
and that the value of only ~46,258 of British woollens and
worsteds were exported to that country in 1862. It is a matter of no little interest to us to know the manufacturing condition of the nations which have made such declarations of
independence.
* "But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators
have succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever." -Reflections on the
Revolution in France. London, 1791) p. 60.




37
Austria consumes about 70,000,000 pounds of wool per year,
and its annual production of woollen fabrics amounts to about
$50,000,000 per year. It supplies its own population, and
exports to the Levant, Asia, the United States, and even China.
Its manufactures of woollens were stimulated, first, by almost
absolute prolibition, and have been since encouraged by duties
highly prohibitory. What is the condition of the manufacture
thus aided by the national favor? Let the disinterested testimony of an English expert answer. The reporter on the class
of woollens, in the London Exhibition of 1862, says: " There is
no inland country in Europe which has made so much progress in woollen manufactures during the last ten or twelve
years as Austria.  It has not only maintained and improved
its reputation for fine plain woollens, doeskins, heavy coatings,
&c., but has made wonderful advances in fancy trouserings.
They are no longer imitations of French, English, or other
designs, but display an originality highly creditable to the
manufacturer. Their woollen dyeing is the best in the whole
exposition. The whites, scarlets, oranges, and other shades,
possess a clearness, richness, and fulness of color, not attained
by any other country."
Sweden, although enjoying few advantages of soil, climate,
and position, owes to the policy which the Bradford merchant
calls " a debatable honor," her present honorable place in the
community of nations. Her population has steadily advanced.
Her importation of foreign luxuries of food has greatly increased.  Her agriculture has been developed.  In the ten
years ending in 1787, her importation of grain had been 196,000,000 pounds.  In the decade ending in 1853, it was but
34,000,000, while the population had almost doubled. Lands
have increased in value, property is divided, a taste for literature is extending, and the people have secured political representation. In the short space of thirteen years the iron manufacture had nearly doubled.*  The manufacture of woollens in
* Carey, Manual of Social Science, p. 246.




38
the large establishments has been so successful that it is said
that " the worsted and mixed fabrics are such exact imitations
of Bradford goods that the most acute judges can scarcely distinguish the difference."  The manufacture of woollen cloth
is found everywhere throughout the country in the houses of
the people. Compare the condition of the people of Sweden,
under their system  of industrial independence, with that of
the population  of Ireland, or of Turkey, where men, compelled to abandon weaving and spinning and gathering mulberry leaves and feeding silk worms, can earn but five cents a
day,* to which condition the policy of the Bradford merchant
would reduce them. " The people of Sweden," says a traveller quoted by Mr. Carey, "seem to unite, on a small scale, all
the advantages of a manufacturing and agricultural population
more fully than in any district I have ever seen.  The men do
the farm business, while the women drive a not less profitable
branch of industry.  There is full employment, at the loom or
in spinning, for the old and young of the female sex. Servants are no burden.  About the houses there is all the neatness of a thriving manufacturing, and the abundance of an
agricultural population. The table-linen, laid down even for
your glass of milk and piece of bread, is always clean; the
beds and sheets are always nice and white.  Everybody is well
clad, for their manufacturing, like their farming, is for their
own use first, and the surplus only as a secondary object, for
sale; and from the number of little nick-nacks in their households, the good tables and chairs, window-curtains and blinds
(which no hut is without), clocks, fine bedding, papered rooms,
and a few books, it is evident that they lay out their winnings
on their own comfort, and that these are not on a low scale of
social well-being."
Spain, which also enjoys " the unfortunate distinction" of pro* Report of the Commissioner of Patents for 1861: Agriculture, p. 12,




39
tecting her industry, was driven to this policy by seeing, under
her colonial system, her home industry abandoned, her artisans
and farmers dying out, her towns and cities decaying, and her
lands monopolized by the nobles and the church. Fortunately
she lost her colonies, and was compelled to look at home. Her
agriculture, manufactures, and commerce, have doubled in the
last twenty-five years.  Provided with that wonderful breed of
sheep which has been the great ameliorator of most of the
flocks in the world, and which, according to the statement of
1icr Catholic Majesty's Secretary of State in 1854, still survives in its original perfection,* Spain has made remarkable
progress in her woollen manufactures, and will not be likely to
abandon the system which sustains them when even English
judges say of them as follows: " Upon the whole, it is evident
that Spain now possesses manufacturers of great enterprise,
artisans of first-rate skill, and machinery of the best and most
approved kinds.  The progress made by the Spanish woollen
manufacturers since 1851, is of a most striking character, displaying results which bring their productions almost on a par
with the most advanced manufacturers of any country. The
printing of their dyes, and clearness and beauty of their
blended colors, are equal to those of France, Austria, and the
United Kingdom.t
Russia, which wears the crown of" debatable honor " in English eyes, was, fifty years ago, merely an agricultural nation.
Manufactures began to spring up under the continental system, but were crushed by the policy of Alexander, who, at the
close of the war, gave free admission to the goods of his late
ally. In 1824, Count Nesselrode established the system which
achieved the industrial independence of Russia.  That empire
has now 45,000,000 sheep, of which 18,000,000 are merinos.
In 1849, the woollen industry employed 495,000 workmen,
* Ohio Agricultural Report. 1862, p. 498.
t International Exhibition of 1862. Reports of Juries, Class 21.




40
distributed in 9,172 establishments; besides employing a vast
number in making carpets and common stuffs in the cottages
of the peasantry. It supplies almost entirely the domestic
consumption, including clothing for her vast army, none of
which was made in the empire before 1824.  In cloths alone
the production is more than $2D,000,000. Russia exports even
more woollen goods than she imports.  In 1850, she imported
woollen goods of the value of $1,000,000, and exported to the
amount of over $2,500,000, principally to China and Central
Asia.*  The people of Russia, employed by this and kindred
manufactures, consume at home the enormous' products of
their agriculture. Of the 1,600,000,000 bushels of corn, which
is the product of their soil, they export only 15,000,000, less
than one per cent of the total cereal product.  The question
arises, Can manufactures, so completely exempted from foreign
competition, attain that excellence which is necessary for true
industrial progress?  Let the English judges again answer.
They say, in 1861, "Those who remember the woollen goods
exhibited from  Russia, in 1851, and compare them with the
goods exhibited now, cannot fail to be struck with the remarkable progress made in every branch of manufacture, cloths,
beavers, fancy cassimeres, mixed fabrics, and shawls, &c.; all
bear evidence of the improvement, and show a degree of excellence, whiclh,as regards make and finish, place the production
of Russia on a par with some of the oldest' manufacturing
countries." t
The present manufacturing prosperity of these, as well as
other industrial States of continental Europe, naturally suggests this inquiry, What would have been the future industrial condition of continental Europe, if, at the time when
peace restored the nations to labor, the textile manufactures
had been left to their own free course, and no legislation had
* Bernoville, Industrie des Laines peigndes, p. 90, et seq.
t International Exhibition of 1862. Reports of Juries, Class 21.




41
intervened  to  regulate  their progress?   Can there be any
doubt that they would have become the exclusive occupation
of England?   Alone in the possession of steam  power and
machinery; alone provided with ships and means of transport;
alone endowed, through her stable legislation, with capital to
vivify her natural wealth, she had absolute command of the
markets of the continent.  The question  was presented to
the continental nations, whether they should accept the cheap
tissues of England, or, at some sacrifices, repel them, to appropriate to themselves the labor and profit of their production.
The latter course was successively adopted, with some modifications, by each of the continental nations; and with what
results to their own wealth, and the industrial progress and
comfort of the world!  Instead of a single workshop, Europe
has the workshops of France, Russia, Austria, Prussia,* Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, each clothing its own people
with substantial fabrics; each developing  its own  creative
genius and peculiar resources; each contributing to substitute
the excellence of competition for the mediocrity of monopoly;
each adding to the progress of the arts and the wealth and
comfort of mankind.
It remains for me now to illustrate the national importance
of the wool manufacture by the industry of our own country.
I shall not attempt to describe the successive steps of the progress by which this manufacture has attained its present position.  I can add nothing which is not already familiar to the
members of this Association, or which may not be found in easily
accessible sources of information.  The most striking feature in
the brief history of our manufacture is its instability.  As in
* The trade of Germany at the beginning of the century was hides, tallow, flax, and
wool, exported for cloth and cutlery in return. Since 1815, Germany has made its own
cloths and cutlery. The balance in favor of exportations of woollen goods from the
Zollverein, from 1846 to 1848, was 3,316,000k; and the total production in 1849 was
403,750,000 francs. Such were the consequences of the adoption of a common system of
protection.
6




42
the continental states of Europe manufactures were called into
being by their respective governments, the very existence of the
woollen industry in this country depended upon the national
legislation, or such a state of national affairs as would restrain
the competition of the older and well-established foreign manufactures.  By the war of 1812, which accomplished for this
country what the continental blockade did for France, the woollen manufacture was brought up from  a product of only
4,000,000 in 1810 to 19,000,000 in 1815; only to be overwhelmed by the enormous importation, at the close of the war,
of 70,000,000 in woollens and cottons at an ad valorem  duty
of 5 per cent."  Reviving in 1816, by the aid of a duty of 25 per
cent, and tle free admission of raw material, the interest was
depressed again in 1820, by the fall of the duty to 20 per cent.
The manufacturers were stimulated to new enterprises by the
increased duty of 338  per cent established after June, 1825, and
by the still increased rates of the tariff of 1827; but the expected benefits were neutralized by the high duties placed
upon the raw  material.  The characteristic instability was
continued under the biennial reductions of the compromise
policy of 1832.  The stimulus of the favorable tariff of 1842
was followed by the crushing influence of the ad valorem
tariff of 1846, which, placing an equal duty upon wool and its.manufactures, and in some cases a higher duty upon the
former, gave no protection, or discriminated against American
fabrics.  The effect of this measure was the destruction of
American broadcloths, and, at the same time, the extinguishment of our Saxony sheep.  The tariff of 1857 was productive
of some benefit by enlarging the free list. Finally, the so-called
Morill tariff of 1861, since modified by the law  of 1864,
gave, not by increasing the duty, but by establishilng just relations between the duties on manufactures and raw material, the
* At this time, full-blooded merinos sold for one dollar apiece. Bucks had been sold
during the war for a thousand dollars apiece, Randall's Practical Shepherd, p. 24.




43
first encouragement that our industry might be established
upon a permanent basis, and become here what it is elsewhere,
a pillar of national prosperity. Notwithstanding the legislation, often unfriendly and always uncertain, the woollen manufacture had become established in 1860 as a great industrial
power, and, by the amount, variety, and excellence of its products, had proved itself eminently worthy of national favor.
I am indebted to Mr. Kennedy, the late admirable Superintendent of the Census of 1860, for proof-sheets of the chapters
oni "woollen" and "worsted  goods" of the forthcoming
volume of the Census upon "Manufactures;" a work which
while passing through the press, has been most cruelly taken
from  the hands of the one who conceived and executed it.
The total values of the several manufactures of wool in 1860
were as follows:
Carpets........  $7,857,636
Hosiery...........    7,280,606
Wool-carding..                      2,403,512
Worsted Goods...  3,701,378
Woollen Goods (including yarns, blankets,
and shawls)..... 61,895,217
Total.....                 $83,138,349
" On the first of June, 1860, the number of establishments
employed on woollen goods, exclusive of worsted dress goods,
was 1,260. They represented a capital of $30,862,654, and
consumed 83,608,468 pounds of wool, and 15,200,061 pounds
of cotton, costing, with all other materials, $36,586,887. They
worked 3,209 sets of machinery. They gave employment to
24,841 male and 16,519 female hands, or 41,360 persons, whose
annual wages cost $9,808,254. The aggregate value of the
product amounted to $61,895,217."' With a decrease of 557 in the number of establishments, as
compared with the census of 1850, doubtless in part occasioned
by a more complete exclusion from the recent tables of such




44
accessory and kindred branches as wool-carding and worsted
mills, the aggregates show an increase of $4,791,112, or 18-3
per cent in capital invested; $11,674,432, or 46-8 per cent in
the expenditure for raw materials; 6,465, or 18'5 per cent
in the number of hands; and $2,640,354, or 36'8 per cent in
the annual cost of wages, while the aggregate value of the
manufactured product appreciated $18,352,929, or 42-14 per
cent upon the returns of 1850. The gross proceeds of the
manufacture, after deducting the cost of materials and labor,
was $15,527,367, or upwards of fifty per cent upon the capital
employed, to cover the interest on capital, the wear and tear of
machinery, and various incidental expenses."
" The consumption of wool amounted to an average of 2'61
pounds per capita for the entire population of the Union. It
was in the proportion of five and one-half pounds to every
pound of cotton used in the business. The quantity of cloth
manufactured exceeded the amount returned in 1850 by 42,691,210 yards, or fifty-two per cent, and the weight of yarn was
2,106,870 pounds, or nearly fifty per cent greater than in that
year. The product in cloth was equivalent to nearly four
yards to each inhabitant of the Union, and in value averaged
nearly two dollars ($1.97) per capita. The average annual
wages of each operative was $237, or $32 greater than in 1850."
(Compare this with the annual wages of the French workman,
$78.70!)
According to the same report, the worsted manufacturers had
in 1860 an invested capital of $3,460,000. " They employed 110
sets of cards, and 1,101 male and 1,277 female hands, whose
aggregate yearly wages amounted to $488,736. The raw materials were 3,000,000 pounds of wool, worth $1,554,000;
1,653,000 pounds of cotton, costing $196,640, besides madder,
and other dye-stuffs, coal, oil, &c., costing altogether $2,767,700. The cost of wool was 51 cents, and of cotton 11'8 cents
a pound. The aggregate product was 22,500,000 yards, valued
at $3,201,378."




45
Keeping in mind the total value of our manufactures of
wool in 1860, according to the census returns, we have some
means of forming an estimate of the progress of our manufactures since that period, from  the reports of the Internal
Revenue for 1864.  From the amount of internal revenue paid
upon those classes of manufactures of wool enumerated at
three per cent, I have calculated the total value upon which
that revenue was paid in each State.  The aggregate is $121,868,250.33.  It will scarcely be suspected that the value lias
been exaggerated.  The value in each State is as follows: -
Massachusetts........             $40,603,651.00
Pennsylvania........16,599,713.33
Connecticut......... 15,866,641.00
New York..... 13,977,775.00
Rhode Island... 10,892,700.33
New Hampshire...  9,079,677.00
Vermont..........  3,708,721.67
New Jersey....  2,778,084.00
Maine........   2,476,483.67
Ohio.........   1,400,877.67
Indiana........    558,615.33
Delaware.....    548,134.67
California....    538,956.00
Maryland........       451,912.00
Kentucky.........    359,905.00
Illinois........         359,084.33
Michigan....    151,848.33
Oregon.....                    128,620.67
Iowa...........                       118,305.33
Missouri..........              75,344.00
Wisconsin....    105,317.67
West Virginia....                63,753.00
Kansas..........          14,947.67
Minnesota....              9,146.00
Nebraska Territory...          45.65
A great progress is indicated by the returns made to the
office in answer to about 1,700 circulars sent out.  The total




46
number of sets in 1860, according to the census, was 3,319;
931 returns received at the office of the Association on the first
of September,* 1865, reported 4,073 sets of cards, collsuming
2,275,855 pounds weekly of scoured wool, of which 1,636,821
is domestic, and 639,084 is foreign; the weekly average per
set being 559 pounds.  The census returns of 1860 were complete.  According to our list 608 mills remain to be heard
from.  Returns are coming in daily, and it is believed the
number of sets will not fall short of five thousand.
Another indication of progress is the greatly increased consumption of wool.  The total amount of wool produced in the
United States in 1860, according to the census, was 60,264,913
pounds, all of which was consumed in our manufactures.  The
amount imported  in  that year, according to the report of
Messrs. Bond and Livermore, was 32,371,719 pounds,t making
the total amount consumed 92,636,632 pounds.  The home
product of 1864 is estimated, by the Department of Agriculture, at not less than 80,000,000 pounds.. The amount imported was 72,371,503 pounds.~  Total, 152,371,503 pounds,
an increase of 59,734,871 pounds, or sixty-one per cent.
Not the least interesting result, which is at the same time
the cause and effect of the increase of our woollen manufacture, is one eminently national; viz., that we have been able to
clothe our vast army with our own fabrics, and by only the
national expansion of our industry.  By our looms and sewing-machines we furnished, in one year, not less than 35,174,608 garments.l  Mr. Bond, chairman of our "Committee on
Raw Materials," estimates, from  official reports received from
the Quartermaster-General of the United States of the quan* The Table in the Appendix contains the aggregate results up to Oct. 25th, 1863.
t Wool Report to the Boston Board of Trade for 1864, by George William Bond and
George Livermore, p. 8.
t Monthly Report of the Agricultural Department for January, 1865, p. 22.
~ Report of Messrs. Bond and Livermore for 1864, p. 8.
II Report of Messrs. Bond and Livermore for 1864, p. 7.




47
tity of woollen goods purchased for the army in 1862 and 1863,
that the quantity of wool consumed in our mills for army use
was, in -
1862..........    51,400,000 lbs.
1863...........  61,300,000,,
1864, no returns, say.....  61,300,000,,
To this must be added the consumption for the navy, and
for cartridges, and the total cannot vary much from 200,000,000.
Compare this with the condition of the country at the commencement of the war of 1812, when the Secretary of War
was compelled to ask Congress for permission to import 5,000
blankets for the supply of the Indians.*
This is but one of the many illustrations which the war has
furnished of the great truth of political economy, that a nation
is powerful and independent, just in proportion as it cultivates
a variety of industry in its people.
"The war and its incidents," says Dr. Elder,t "' shed a flood
of light upon the effect of a well-secured home consumption
for agricultural products of every kind, of which tlhe woolgrowing interest is an example.  In the ten years before the
rebellion, the sheep of Pennsylvania had decreased 12 per
cent in number.  In May, 1864, the Agricultural Bureau,
reports  an  increase of 76 per cent in  four years.  Ih
Illinois, they had fallen off in the last census decade 14
per cent.  In the first two years of the war, according to the
report of the county assessors, they had increased from  769,135 to 1,206,695, and the editor of the Chicago " Tribune"
estimates the number at 3,000,000 at the close of the year
1864, an increase of two hundred and ninety per cent in four
years.  This immense advance is owiing simply to a protective
* Pamphlet entitled Free Trade in Raw Materials considered in its Effect upon all
Classes of the People. New York, 1855, p. 14.
t The Western States, their Pursuits and Policy, p. 22.




48
tariff, aided by the high rate of foreign exchange and absolute
possession of the home market."
I shall not enlarge further upon tLe American woollen
industry. It may appear that I have not done it justice. It
would have afforded me satisfaction to give, from  original
sources, special details of our manufacture; to enumerate the
fabrics in which we excel; to specify the inventions which we
have contributed; to do honor to the great men whose genius
and enterprise have built up the pillars of our industry; to
exhibit its peculiar social and economic relations in this country; in a word, to contribute facts from  our manufacture to
serve to illustrate the general progress of the arts.  But the
experience and observation of many years, instead of a few
months, are necessary for such a work.  It can be done,
indeed, by no one man. Each one of you, gentlemen, must
spare time and thought to contribute materials for such a work
as shall be a worthy record and monument of your labors.
In this way you will subserve the highest object of our Association.
But the time has not yet come for the woollen manufacture
to vaunt of its achievements. Its career has but commenced.
Its aim is nothing less than to clothe the American people with
indigenous fabrics.  In twenty years preceding 1862, we imported foreign woollen manufactures of the value of $429,422,951,-an average of upwards of 19,000,000 a year.  To
displace the foreign manufacture, and supply a population of
35,000,000, to be doubled in thirty more years, - consuming
more woollen goods than the same number of any people
in tile world, -a field for gigantic enterprise is opened to the
American manufacturer.  This consideration leads to the
second branch of my subject: -The means of developing the
woollen manufacture.
The requisite above all others necessary for the development
of our manufacture, is a sufficient and diversified supply of the




49
raw material, —wool.' For this our main dependence must
always be upon our own agriculture.  An instinctive sentiment of patriotism  leads every consumer to prefer a home
product, if it will suit his purpose equally well with a foreign
product.  It is for the interest of the consumer to buy at
home; he saves commissions, exchanges, transportation.  He
can select exactly what he wants, and he can sell his own products where he buys.  The statistics collected by the Association show that the vast majority of the manufacturers of the
country use only domestic wool.  Of 4073 sets, 2171 are employed wholly upon domestic wool.  Of 931 mills, 767 use
domestic wool; while only 46 mills in the whole country use
foreign wool alone.
So absolute is the dependence of the manufacturer of each
nation upon the wool-growers of his own country, that the
characteristic features of the manufactures of different nations
have been impressed by the peculiar conditions of their agriculture.  I will cite some examples, which will serve at the
same time to show tle direction towards which it is desirable
our own agriculture should tend.
The sheep of England at an early period were divided into
two distinctly marked classes.  The one class, thriving upon
the dry uplands, produced a short wool, adapted solely for
making felted cloths, called clothing wool.  Of this class, the
original Southdown was a type.  The other class, of greater
size, flourishing upon the rich moist plains, produced wool
characterized by great length, strength, transparency, and the
little degree in which it possessed the felting property.  Tlis
wool, fitted for making serges and stuff-goods, was called combing wool, from the instrument used to make the fibres straight
and parallel preparatory to spinning.  The type of this class
was the Leicester sheep. In raising sheep of botl kinds, the
primary object anciently was, the product of wool; the mutton
being merely accessory.
7




50
Under the old system of pasturage, it was found that but a
given number of sheep could be kept on a certain space of
ground; and, throughout a portion of the year, they were deficient in nourishment.  Towards tile end of the seventeenth
century, the culture of turnips was introduced from  Holland
to England, with the financial and political institutions brought
over by William III.  Under the new system  of agriculture,
the artificial or turnip husbandry, a regular supply of food was
provided for each season of the year, and double or treble the
number of sheep could be kept upon the same land.  The agriculturalists of England then began to perceive that the meat
of the sheep was a more important source of profit than the
wool, and that the wool must be the accessory.  The revolution, which established the superiority of meat over wool, was
principally due to Bakewell, of Dishley, to whom  England
owes hardly less than to Watt and Arkwright.  Before his day,
the English sheep were not fit for the butcher till about four
or five years old. He conceived that if it were possible to
bring sheep to their full development before that age, —to
make them fit for being killed at two years old, for example,the produce of the flocks by this means would be doubled. To
accomplish this, he applied to the old Leicester sheep of his
neighborhood what is now the well known principle of selection in breeding, but which may be said to have originated in
his brilliant experiments. So complete was his success, that
the breed obtained by him, called the " New Leicester," is unrivalled in the world for precocity, produces animals which
may be fattened as early as one year old, and, in every case, have
reached their full growth before the end of the second year.
To this invaluable quality is added a perfection of shape which
renders them  more fleshy and heavier for their size than any
known breed.  Bakewell himself was not wanting in remuneration for his labors.  So great was the appreciation of his new
flocks, that he let his rams for one season for the enormous




51
sum of six thousand guineas.  The " New Leicester," in time,
came to be the most numerous and widely extended breed
in all England.  In many districts, they displaced the shortwool breeds; in others modified them. The extension of this
breed gave preponderance to the production of the long wool
with which it was clothed. The great value of Bakewell's labors
consisted, not only in contributing a new race realizing the
maximum  of precocity and return, when placed on suitable
lands, but in pointing out the means by which other indigenous races might be improved.  The ancient race of the Downs,
adapted for the highlands where the "New Leicester" did
not thrive, originally producing short clothing-wool, was formerly of small size, and yielded but little meat, and would
seldom fatten until four years old.  By a careful selection of
breeders, and the good winter regimen which the turnip husbandry gives, the English breeders caused the Southdown to
become the rival of the "New Leicester" in early development
and perfection of shape. They fatten generally when about
two years old, and are sold after the second clip. But a change
was also effected in the character of the fleece, which the farmers at first refused to believe.  It lost the character of a
clothing-wool.  It became longer and coarser.  As Mr. Youatt
says,  " That which was once a carding, had become a combillg-wool; and useful and valuable for a different purpose. It
had not deteriorated, but it had changed." * The same change,
from the same cause, has been effected in the Cheviot wool of
Scotland.
The result of this direction of the agriculture of England, to
seek profit rather from the meat than the wool in the culture
of their flocks, is truly astonishing when a comparison is made
with France, - which pursues a different system, - making
the meat accessory to the wool, as it is with us. Each country
* Youatt on Sheep, p. 227.




52
has an equal number of sheep.  But England feeds one sheep
per acre, while France feeds only one-third of a head.  The
produce of the English sheep is double that of the French; and
the average return of an English sheep-farm is six times greater
than a French one.*
The effect of this system  upon manufactures is no  less
remarkable. The wool of England, without the knowledge or
purpose of her farmers, has become a combing-wool; and the
worsted manufacture, through the unconscious influence of
English agriculture, has become developed to such an extent,
that the towns of Yorkshire have grown up as marvellously as
those of our great West.
The uses of the wool have changed. It was anciently employed principally for making says and serges,-  grave stuffs
for monks or mourners. It is now principally used for making
light fancy fabrics for female apparel. Spencer describes envy
as clad in a garment of this wool:" All in a kirtle of discolored say,
He clothed was y painted full of eies." t
The female of modern times, arrayed in the bright-colored
textures of Bradford, may be likened to the Fidessa of Spencer
in her outward aspect:-' A goodly lady clad in scarlet red,
Purfied with gold and pearls.":
I need not make the application of the lesson contained in these
facts to our own country. We imported in 1860 $15,000,000 of
worsteds, principally from England. We made only $3,000,000.
To replace the English worsteds we have absolutely no raw
material, and depend wholly upon the Leicester and Cotswold
wools of Canada.~   Why should not the American, as well
* Rural Economy of England, Scotland, and Ireland, by Leonce De Lavergne,
translated from the French. Edinburgh and London, 1855, p. 27.
t The Faerie Queene, Book i. Canto iv.: The Faerie Queene, Book i. Canto ii.
~ The wool known in our markets as Canada wool consists wholly of fleeces from
the long-wooled Leicester, Cotswold sheep, and crosses of these breeds with the South



53
as the English farmer, seek a profit in mutton and wool as
well as in wool alone, and  thus supply the greatest necessity
of American manufacture? *
Another example of this dependence of manufactures upon
agriculture  is found  in  France.   The  attempts of Colbert to
naturalize the merino had so utterly failed, that it was believed
impossible to raise or multiply this invaluable animal under
the climate of France. A century after Colbert had made his
attempts, Trudaine, the Minister of Finances under Louis XV.,
had  direction  of the department of commerce.   Although  at
that time  the  happy effects of the administration of the Minister of Louis XIV. were evident, in  the progress of French
industry, the indigenous wools were all of moderate quality, and
the manufacturers obtained all their choice wools from abroad.
Spain threatened to organize manufactures of her own, and  it
was feared that France would be no longer able to obtain her
choice  wools.  To  remedy  this  evil, Trudaine  conceived  the
happy thought of applying to Daubenton, already distinguished,
down, recently introduced from England. Mr. Stone, of Guelph, Canada West, has
taken the lead in the introduction of these sheep. The flocks in Canada are small,
averaging from 20 to 50 head. It has been estimated that 6,000,000 pounds of long
wool will be grown this year. Large numbers of Canadian sheep have been carried
to the West during the present season. The consumption in the United States of
Canada wool for the present year, is estimated by Mr. Cameron, an intelligent worsted
manufacturer, whose data, showing the consumption of each mill, are now before me, at
6,500,000 lbs.  The success of the Lowell Manufacturing Company, in fabricating
alpaca goods fiom Canada lustre wools, has demonstrated that the wool does not
deteriorate. The Canada wool has been found equal to the best English lustre wool,
imported expressly for comparison. The free wool of Canada has been an inestimable
boon to our worsted manufacturers. It does not compete with the production of our
own farmers, as we grow hardly more than 200,000 lbs. of long wool, while Canada consumes 300,000 lbs. annually of our clothing wool. It is not possible that our own production of long wool will keep up with the demand.
Long-wooled Flemish sheep have been recently imported from  Friesland by Mr.
Chenery, of Belmont. They are said, by Youatt (p. 176), to be more prolific than any
English breed. Their milk is valuable, and is used by the Dutch in the manufacture of
a considerable quantity of cheese of a good quality.
* See an excellent article, on the Condition and Prospects of Sheep Husbandry in
the United States, in the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for the year 1862,
p. 242, in which the raising of long-wooled sheep is forcibly recommended.




54
for his profound investigations in zoology and comparative
anatomy at the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes, where lie
was associated with the illustrious Buffon.  Daubenton, who
had studied the question of domestic animals with Buffon, did
not hesitate to accept the mission of ameliorating the domestic
sheep of his own country. The government furnished him the
means of establishing a sheep-fold for experiments at Montbard,
his native country; and, in the space of ten years, viz., from
1766 to 1776, he had solved the problem which, for a century,
had been thought impossible. He produced superfine wool
from the coarse native sheep of France. " I allied," he says in
his instructions for shepherds, " rams whose wool was the
finest with ewes having as much hair as wool, to judge by extremes the effect of the wool of the ram upon that of the ewe.
I was surprised to see issue from this cross a ram with superfine wool. This great amelioration gave me the more hope for
the success of my enterprise, as it was produced by a Rousselon
ram.*  I had at that time had no Spanish rams."  "By these
experiments, continued with the greatest precautions," he
continues, "I brought all the races of my sheepfold to the
degree of fineness of Spanish wool without.using any Spanish
stock."  He caused his wools to be made into fabrics at the
Gobelin manufactory, and the stuffs were pronounced to have
all the fineness of those made with Spanish wools with more
nerve and strength.  Convinced by this success, Louis XVI.
obtained from the King of Spain, in 1786, a flock of merinos,
which he placed at Rambouillet, under the direction of Daubenton.  Enlightened by his previous labors upon the domestic
sheep, the practical naturalist found no difficulty in acclimating and ameliorating the Spanish race.  The flock at
Rambouillet was multiplied. It furnished an example and supplied reproducers, which were spread everywhere throughout
France.  A school of shepherds was organized; other national
* The finest of French native breeds. Noveau traite sur laine, p. 67.




55
sheepfolds were founded, and the  merinos were  established  in
France.*   Daubenton continued to publish treatises upon their
management.   Even  fifty-three  years  after  his  first  labors,
when  84  years  old, lie  addressed  the  Institute  in  relation  to
experiments  upon  sheep  which  he  was  then   carrying   on.
* One of the most interesting results of the acclimatation of the merinos in France is
the creation of a new and perfectly fixed race, remarkable for its silky wool, called the
MIauchamp race. In 1828, there was accidentally produced at the farm of Mauchamp,
cultivated by AM. Graux, a ram, badly and even monstrously formed, having a head of
unusual size and a tail of great length, but having a wool remarkable for its softness,
and above all for its lustre, which resembled that of silk. This was the second animal of
the kind which had been born in the flock of merinos at Mauchamp; the first had been
killed by the mother. Mr. Graux separated it from the flock, and raised it apart, to prevent any accident, and used it for reproduction; obtaining some animals similar to the
sire, and others to the dam. Taking afterwards the animals similar to the sire, and crossing them among themselves or with the sire, which served as a type, he succeeded in
forming, little by little, a small flock of animals whose wool was perfectly silky. When
he had arrived at this result, he occupied himself in modifying the forms, which he easily
accomplished; and finally in modifying the size, originally quite small, but which is now
the same as that of ordinary French merinos, - rams of three years old weighing as much
as 80 kilogrammes, and a flock of six hundred head producing on an average two kilogrammes of wool washed on the back. As with all innovators, M. Graux met on all
sides detractors of his discovery. The farmers pretended that the silky type could not
be preserved when transported from Mauchamp; and the manufacturers asserted that the
wool was so pliant and slippery that nothing could be done with it. They even complained of the very qualities which distinguish it. It is probable that the discoverer
would have renounced the development of this magnificent race, if he had not been encouraged by an annual subvention from the government, obtained by M. Yvart, the
Inspector-general of the imperial sheepfolds. In 1853, M. Davin, a manufacturer distinguished for his zeal and skill in introducing new material to the textile arts, experimented upon the material rejected by others. He succeeded in making magnificent
stuffs which excited the admiration of all connoisseurs. They exhibited, in the tender
colors especially, reflections of light which had never been before observed, and a softness
which had never been found in any material of wool of any degree of fineness. The
silky lustre was so marked, that, in a ciallis made with a silken warp and weft of Mauchamp wool, although the stuff contained only one-eighth of silk and seven-eighths of
silky wool, it was as brilliant as if made entirely of silk. Merinos, mousselines, satins of
China, and shawls, made of this material, equalled, if they did not surpass, analogous products made of the finest Cashmere yarns. The commission of savans, who reported upon
the qualities of this new race to the Imperial Society of Acclimatation, say: " The silky
wool is destined to replace completely in our industry the Cashmere which comes from
Thibet. It is fully as brilliant as Cashmere, fully as soft; and, while it costs less as a raw
material, it requires less manipulation to be transformed into yarn, since it does not contain the hair (jarre), which must be removed from the Cashmere."  In 1857, a medal of
the first class was decreed to M. Davin for his industrial application of this material; and
the society above referred to has proposed a prize of 2,000 francs for a flock of one hundred animals of the silky type. Bulletin de la Socidet Imperiale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, t. v. p. 113, also t. vi. p. 502.




56
Although it was scarcely before  the establishment of the empire that the advantages of the  new  race began  to  be understood, one-fourth of the sheep of France  consist at present of
merinos from  this stock.   The merino  of France  has become,
through the culture of her agriculturalists, one of the most distinct of the merino races.   In size and weight of washed wool
it surpasses all other merinos, and their French savans say of
them, " We are at present the first in the entire world for the
fineness and quality of our wools, and the beauty and good
conformation  of the merinos which  produce  them."   Within
even  the  present  year  the  Imperial  Zoilogical  Society  of
Acclimatation, at the instance of its President,-  the illustrious
Drouyn de L'huys, the Premier of Napoleon III.,-  has dedicated  a statue  to  the  great naturalist who  endowed  France
with  this magnificent legacy, to prove, in  the language  of its
Vice-president, "that no  true  glory  passes unperceived, that
every  serious servitor of his country  and  humanity  receives
sooner or later his just recompense." *
What has been the effect of this agricultural achievement of
France upon the character of her fabrics? The high culture
of the French sheep for the purpose of obtaining great size and
weight of fleece, has done for the merino in France what it did
for Southdown in England;  it has added  length  to  the fibre,
and made it a genuine combing-wool.t   Its value for this pur* M. Richard, Vice-president of the Imperial Society of Acclimatation. See Bulletin de la Socidtd Imperiale Zoologique d'Acclimatation, 2 Sevie, t. i. November, 1864,
p. 647, et seq.
t Although the prevailing character of the French fleeces is as above described, a
breed of sheep has been cultivated to a limited extent in France which rival in fineness
of wool the most reputed flocks of Saxony. They are called the sheep of Naz, and
have been cultivated by an agricultural association of that name for over sixty years.
The original nucleus of the flock was derived from  the most ancient of the Royal
Cabanas, and the flock has been increased without any admixture of foreign blood.
The flock in 1840 had been reduced to about 500 head, but the wool still preserved its
reputation for fineness, softness, force, and elasticity. The price at that time was about
five francs the kilogramme for wool in the yolk, which was double the price of the
wools of Rarnbouillet. The average weight of the fleeces is a little less than two kilogrammes, or about 4 lbs. Gen. Lafayette raised sheep of this race at La Grange; and




57
pose is thus pronounced by one of the most eminent of the
practical manufacturers of France:
"There are two facts we ought to proclaim abroad.
"The first is, that without the introduction of the Spanish
race into our flocks, and without all the skill of our agriculturists, we should still vegetate in dependence upon neighboring nations, and should be reduced to clothe ourselves with
their stuffs. It is to the admirable revolution in the raising of
ovine animals that we owe the beautiful industry of spinning
the merino combing-wools.  It is to this that we owe the splendor of the industries of weaving combing-wool at Paris, at
Rheims, at Roubais, at Amiens, and St. Quentin.
" Tle second fact is, that the aspect, the quality, the character of our modern tissues, in a word, all that makes them
deserve, for forty or fifty years, the name of new inventions, is
due principally to the particular nature of the combing-wool
obtained by the Spanish cross.  There are few, very few inventions, in the contexture of the stuffs, or in their mounting upon
the looms, which are still the same as in the 18th century.  It is
because it has been favored by the wool of merinos that the 19th
century has changed the physiognomy of the tissues of preceding ages." *
Before inquiring what profit our manufacturers can derive
from these facts, I wish to cite an American example of the
influence of agriculture upon our manufactures, and pay homage to an American name less widely known but hardly less
deserving of honor than those of Bakewell and Daubenton.
Col. Humplheys, who had been a member of Washilgton's
family at his home on the Potomac, and had been imbued with
a taste for agriculture by the immortal farmer of Mt. Vernon,
having been afterwards Minister to Spain, made the first imin a letter to Mr. Skinner, in 1828, recommends their introduction into the United
States. -New England Farmer, vol. vii. p. 92. See Bulletin de la Socidtd d'Acclima.
tation. vol. vii. p. 479.
* Bernoville, p. 165.
8




58
portant importation of pure merino sheep from  the Spanish
cabanas.  In 1813, Stephen Atwood, of Woodbury, Connecticut, bought a ewe of Col. Humphreys.  He bred this ewe and
her descendants with rams in his neighborhood, which lie knew
to be of the pure Humphreys's blood, until about 1830, after
which he uniformly used rams from his own flock.  This flock
gaining much public favor, although full of what would be
now  regarded deficiencies, attracted the attention of Edwin
Hammond, a farmer of Middlebury, Vermont, who made considerable purchases of Mr. Atwood's sheep in 1844 and 1846.
A  distinguished member of this Association, whose invaluable
contributions to American-sheep husbandry place him by the
side of the illustrious Von Thaer in Germany, thus describes
the physiological achievements of Mr. Hammond: " By a perfect understanding and exquisite management of his materials,
this great breeder has effected quite as marked an improvement in th!e American merino as Mr. Bakewell effected amolng
the long-wooled sheep of Elgland.  He has converted the thin,
light-boned, smallish, and  imperfectly-covered sheep  above
described, into large, round, low, strong-boned sheep, models
of compactness, and not a few of them  models of beauty, for
fine-wooled sheep.*  I examined the flock nearly a week in
February, 1863. They were in very fine condition, though the
ewes were fed only with hay.  Two of them  weighed about
140 lbs. each.  One of the two largest ewes had yielded a
fleece of 171- lbs., and the other, 14-  lbs., of unwashed wool.
The whole flock, usually about 200 in number, -  with a due
proportion of young and old, including say two per cent of old
rams, and no wethers, —yields an average of about 10 lbs.
* It was stated at a public discussion at the Vermont State Fair, in September, 1865,
that Mr. Hammond was offered $10,000 for his celebrated ram Gold-drop, but the owner
refused to sell him. He alone possessed the characteristics he had been striving for for
years. The President of the Society stated that Mr. Hammond was present when the
lamb, which became so valuable, was dropped. He turned it over, and examined it with
the warmest admiration, and exclaimed, " Welcome! I have been looking for you fifteen
years and more, and now I have got you." -Boston Evening Courier, Sept. 16th, 1865.




59
of unwashed wool per head.  The great weight is not made
up by the extra amount of yolk"  (although it must be admitted that this is not the prevailing opinion of manufacturers), "but by  the  extra  length  and  thickness of every
part of the fleece.  It is of a high medium  quality, and very
even. In every respect this eminent breeder has directed his
whole attention to solid value, and has never sacrificed a particle of it to attain either points of no value or less value." *
The genius of the  American  breeder received  its crowning
honor at the International Exhibition at Hamburg, in 1863.
Sheep  bred  from  Mr. Hammond's  stock, exhibited  by  Mr.
Campbell,-" among 350 competing sheep from Austria, Prussia, Germany, and France,-  received a first prize for the best
ram, a  second  prize  for the  second  best ram, and a first
prize for the best ewes." t   The fleeces of the Vermont breeds
may be regarded as types of the American merino fleece, and
the character of this wool has exerted a marked influence upon
American  manufactures.   It is not a clothing-wool, for the
American merino wool exceeds all other merino wool in length.
The wool exhibited  at Hamburg was from  2- inches to 3{inches long; and, according to German authorities on wool, 1 —
inches is the extreme limit for the length of clothing-wool for
the filling.: Hence we have comparatively no manufactures of
broadcloth.~   American merino wool is fitted for fancy cassi* The Practical Shepherd, by Henry S. Randall, LL.D., p. 29.
t See extract from the official record of awards, published in the Rural New Yorker,
September 9, 1865. The class of merinos in which Mr. Campbell's were shown was
"stocks which have been bred with especial reference to quantity of wool."
"A length of 11 inches may be regarded as the extreme limit for card (clothing)
wool. It is true a longer wool may be used, but then it is only for the warp of the tissues, and the wool required for this purpose is only two-fifths of the quantity employed."
Traite des Betes Ovines par Aug de Weckherlin. Intendant de Prince de Hohen Zollern, p. 90.
~ Since the above statement was made, I have learned that it requires a material
qualification, and I am happy to say, that a name identified with the establishment of
the cotton manufacture in the United States is to be associated with the revival of the




60
meres, in which we excel; for fine shawls, in which we have
attained  great perfection;  for  mousselines  de  laine, which
we have of great excellence, and which we owe to our American fleeces. The true value of the fleece of the American
merino is for combing purposes, for which it has remarkable
analogy with that of France.  This country will never know
the inestimable treasure which it has in its fleeces, until
American  manufacturers  appropriate  them   to  fabricate  the
soft tissues  of  merinos, thibets, and  cashmeres, to  which
France owes " the splendor of the industries of combing-wool at
Paris, Rheims, and Roubaix."   Although our main dependence
fqr raw material must always be upon our agriculture, it supplies but little more than three-fourths of our wants, and it is
probable will never supply it wholly. Our farmers will probably never attempt to supply the cheap coarse wools which
Egypt and South America furnish, nor will they soon abandon
the lusty merinos for the small and delicate Saxons.* For our
very coarse, and, for some time to come, for our very fine, and
for our long wools, we must depend upon the foreign market.
Our manufactures certainly cannot be extended unless we can
be on  some terms of equality  with  foreigners who have no
restriction in the supply of raw materials; for all the principal
broadcloth manufacture in this country. During the present year the Webster Woollen
Manufacturing Company, under the auspices of Mr. H. Nelson Slater, has established, on
a very large scale, the manufacture of broadcloths, which rival the best German fabrics.
* I refer to the wool growers of the north and west. With the auspicious advent of
free labor, an inviting field for fine-wool husbandry is opened on the Appalachian slopes
of the Southern States, and the prairies of Texas. I have the authority of Mr. Gilbert,
of Ware, whose opera cloths, made of the finest Saxony and Silesian wools, have replaced the best French goods in the New-York market, for saying that most admirable
fine wools have been grown in the "Panhandle," Virginia. Judge Baldwin, the late
eminent examiner in the class of "Fibres and Textiles" at the U. S. Patent Office, and
formerly a practical flockmaster in Tennessee, assures me that the culture of fine-wooled
sheep can be pursued to the utmost advantage in the Southern States. Cotton may not
be king even in its own vaunted domain.
For the best history extant, in our language, of the fine-wool husbandry of Germany,
the reader is referred to the article of Mr. Fleischman in the U. S. Patent Office Report
for 1847.




61
manufacturing nations of Europe have practically thrown open
their markets to the raw  material of manufacture.*  I will
refer to but one instance of the impolicy of even the present
comparatively moderate restrictions upon raw material. We
have already constructed, in this country, machinery adapted
for the manufacture of bunting, webbing, braids, and bindings,
sufficient to make all required in the United States. The long
combing-wools required for these manufactures cost in England
35 cents, and pay a duty of 12 cents and 10 per cent, averaging
about 45 per cent.  Two pounds of wool are required to make
a pound of worsted, and the revenue tax on the manufactured
goods, therefore, equals 12 per cent on the raw material.
Without any duty on the imported worsted, the foreign manufacturer would have an advantage of 57 per cent. The duty
on bunting, made wholly of worsted yarn, is 50 per cent. The
foreign manufacturer has therefore an advantage at present
of 7 per cent in the manufacture of bunting. A large portion of the worsted yarns now made, enter into the fabrication of those beautiful goods called fancy hosiery goods,zephyrs, nubas, &c.,-for which the manufacturers of Philadelphia are so celebrated.  The only protection which the
* Rates of dutyonnwool imported into the principal manufacturing nations of Europe,
according to the Customs Tariffs of all nations, up to the year 1855:Great Britain...........    Free.
France (Tariff of 1860)......... *
Belgium.............. 
Zollverein, including Prussia, Saxony, a
and 21 other States.....  
Netherlands............,
(20 copeks per pood or
Russia.............             { about 2 cents per
-  pound.
2d. per centner (or
Austria............                  123L lbs. avoirdupois.)
Common 35s. 5d. per
Spain~...........       100 lbs.; Saxon,
23s. 9d. per 100 lbs.




62
manufacturer has, is his superior taste and knowledge of the
styles which will suit the American fancy. The English manufacturers are not quick enough to learn our styles; although
it is said they had given large orders for Philadelphia hosiery
to imitate our fashions. One mortifying result of this absolute
discrimination in favor of the English worsted manufacture is,
that we actually make no bunting. To our shame be it spoken,
all our flags are grown, spun, woven, and dyed in England;
and on the last 4th of July, the proud American ensigns which
floated over every national ship, post, and fort, and every
patriotic home, flaunted forth upon the breeze the industrial
dependence of America upon England! *
I do not propose to discuss the question, of the free admission of raw materials, or the relative duty on wool and woollen
fabrics.  Most of us, as manufacturers, believe that so long as
the home product of wool is inadequate to the supply of our
machinery, the only protection which can avail the wool-grower
must include protection to the manufacturer; and that any
policy which deprives the manufacturer of the home market
for goods, tends to deprive the grower of the home market for
wool, and to oblige him to compete in the general markets of
the world with other wool-growers; and that the only reliable
protection of the wool-grower is in the ability of the manufacturers to convert his clip into goods which will command the
home market.  We believe that the mutuality of the dependence of the two industries has been demonstrated by the
experience that the wool-growers have always been prosperous
when the prosperity of the manufacturing interest secured them
a home market, and that the seasons of depression have' been
only when the depression of manufacturing has diminished
the home demandd.   But it is not enough for us to believe, or
* My principal authority for these statements is Mr. Allen Cameron, of the Abbott
Worsted Company, Westford, Mass.
t See argument of Mr. Rowland G. Hazard in behalf of the Rhode Island woollen
manufacturers before the Committee of Ways and Means, May 11, 1864. These views




63
even prove all this. There can be no reliance upon a permanent friendly  legislation  for  both  interests  unless the woolgrowers are satisfied.   Our object is not to reach Congress, but
to convince the farmers of the West, who will inevitably control the legislation of this country, of the absolute identity of
our interests.   The  most important means of extending  our
manufacture, therefore, is to establish friendly relations with
the  wool-growers.    How  shall this  be  accomplished?    Let
them  understand  that, while, individually, the  manufacturers
will follow  their commercial instincts in buying at the cheapest
market, they utterly repudiate all associations or combinations to lower the market price.  Let manufacturers be more
careful in the selection of their agents for purchasing wool, or
let them  go themselves into the agricultural districts and  become acquainted with the farmers and their flocks.   If there
is any rule of the trade which operates inequitably towards the
wool-grower, let it be  abolished.    The  complaint has  been
made by the, wool-growers, that the rule that all wools shall be
are not confined to manufacturers. I find the following in the New-England Farmer,
April, 1828, vol. vi., p. 298:-" Mr. Mallary, of Vermont (a wool growing State), in his
speech on the tariff bill, reported by the Committee on Manufactures, opposed the proposed additional duty on wool costing eight cents per pound and under. Ile said such
wool was not and would not be produced in this country. The farmers of Vermont
would not grow wool worth ten or twelve cents, when they could as well produce that
which may be worth forty or fifty cents. This coarse, imported wool is made into negro
cloths and inferior baizes and flannels. The manufacture of it is established, and ought
not to be driven from the country and given to foreigners. The proposed duty would
amount to more than 100 per cent, and would ruin the manufacturer of coarse fabrics at
a blow, without benefiting the farmer. If the latter should raise wool worth eight or
twelve cents, he could not find a market for it. He was also opposed to the other provisions of the bill respecting wool and woollens. The charge on wool was too high, or that
on woollens was not high enough; and this disproportion would inevitably ruin the manufacturer and with him the wool grower. If the farmer could not purchase the wool of the
latter, it would be in vain to purchase it. The markets of Europe are full of wool, and
prices are very low. The English wool-growers are petitioning Parliament for a duty on
foreign wool, but their petitions will not be granted. The English woollen manufacturers
will receive every encouragement, and will be able to sell their goods at the lowest rate
possible so long as there is a prospect that they can break down the American manufacturers. Should they succeed in accomplishing that object, they will then raise their
prices, and we must pay them."-Hampshire Gazette.




64
washed, or subjected to a deduction of one-third, to put them
upon a par with brook-washed wools, operates unequally and
inequitably.   I am  happy  to  say that this subject has been
entrusted to a committee of this Association, and will, doubtless, receive the action of this body.  Let our manufacturers
interest themselves directly in the production of desirable
varieties of wool.  What could be a more becoming or practical contribution from  our manufacturers to agriculture, than
the offer of a really munificent prize for the best flock  of fifty
English long-wooled sheep, born and raised in this country, or
the best flock of Angora goats?* A practicable mode of extending  amicable  relations  between  the  two  industries  is
suggested by what has been done in Germany.  In 1823, the
illustrious Von  Thaer, the great sheep-breeder of Germany,
invited  all the flock-masters and wool-manufacturers of Germany  to  meet at Leipsic, and visit the exposition  of wools
which  has since  become  so  important.   He urged  them  to
enlighten  each  other'mutually  in respect to their reciprocal
interests, and to receive precise indications of the demands of
manufacturers.  This congress convened, and was continued
from year to year, and contributed essentially to preserve the
reputation of German wools and cloths. An important result
of this congress was the adoption, in 1848, of a fixed terminology for the raising of sheep and knowledge of wools.f   It is
* The Angora goat, wholly unknown to the ancients, and first described by Belon in
the sixth century, is diffused around the mountains of Thibet, and beyond the central
plains of Asia from Armenia to Chinese Tartary. The district of Angora, where it most
abounds, is described as a country with a dry atmosphere, and very hot summers, and
very cold winters, -the mercury descending to 20 degrees centigrade. Tie number of
head in the district of Angora is estimated at from 400,000 to 500,000, and the product of
wool at 2,000,000 pounds.  Formerly the wools of Angora were spun and woven in the
place, and were exported in the form of yarns and camlets, of which the city of Angora
sold, in 1844, 35,000 pieces to Europe.  The exportation of the wool called tiftik in
Tulrkey, and mohair in England, was prohibited, and the native spinners and weavers
were protected against the machinery bf Europe. Some 1200 looms were employed.
The natives displayed great skill in making gloves and hosiery, and summer robes of
great beauty for the Turkish grandees. The town flourished, and the whole population
t Wecherlin, Traitd des betes ovines, p. 25.




65
believed that a convention of delegates from the respective
associations of wool-growers and manufacturers in this country
would have the happiest effect upon  the  harmony of both  interests, and might accomplish  important practical results, not
the least of which would be the adoption of a fixed terminology
for the description and knowledge of wools in our own.markets
and farms.
The surest means of developing our industry rests with the
manufacturer alone.  It is for him  perpetually to aspire to the
utmost excellence  in  his products.   I need  not say that the
manufacturer who suffers his goods to run down will inevitably
bring down with tlem  his credit and his fortune.   I need  not
say  that the  trade-marks  on  your goods should  be like  the
tower mark on old silver, the stamp of the true metal, or the
marks on  Swedish iron, recognized all over the world as infalwas employed and happy in the pursuit of their beautiful industry. The Turkish Government was tempted, by British influence, to admit, free of duty, the products of European
machinery, and to permit the export of the raw tiftik. This fatal step was the'deathblow to the town of Angora. Instead of 1200, not more than fifty looms were employed;
the retail merchants, weavers, hand-spinners, and dyers, were ruined, and the city, having
at its command all the raw material for a most important and characteristic manufacture,
offers, in its sad decline, another monument of the desolating influence of that system
which would make the raw material of every country tributary to the one great workshop
of the world. Nearly all the product of Angora wool is now exported to England, and is
spun into yarns which are largely exported to France. They are used for the manufacture of Utrecht velvets, lace, braid, fine shawls, &c. Vigorous attempts have recently
been made on the continent of Europe, especially in France, to acclimate this species; but
nowhere have they succeeded as in the United States. The first importations of seven
head were made about seventeen years ago by Dr. Davis, of South Carolina. About three
hundred have been imported since. Their progeny, with crosses, is said by Mr. Diehl
to number several thousand, scattered in flocks of from 12 to 300 hundred head, principally in the south-western States. A flock imported this season by Mr. Chenery, of Belmont, Mass., which I have examined, is in excellent condition. This flock numbered ten
when it started, and fourteen upon arrival at Boston. They were driven 800 miles to
Constantinople, and were seven months upon the voyage, but arrived in good health.
The value of the wool in the market is now about $1.25 per pound (not $6 to $8, as
stated in the Agricultural Reports). The agent of the Abbott Worsted Manufacturing Co., Westford, Mass., informs me that he has similar machinery for spinning this
wool to that used in the celebrated establishment of Titus Salt, of Bradford.-See
article by Israel S. Diehl, U. S. Agricultural Report, 1863, p. 216. Southey on Colonial
Wools, p. 322, et seq. Bulletin de la Socidtd d'Acclimatation, t. v. p. 569.
9




66
lible seals of uniform excellence.  The credit of your mills and
the honor of your houses will be the most certain fortunes for
yourselves and the best legacies to your sons.  But it is not
enough that you should be content to keep up the old standard
of your goods.  The highest attribute of humanity is the passion for perfection, the aspiration for some unattained ideal.
The noblest men stamp these aspirations upon all their earnest
works; they are then no longer workmen, traders; they become artists.  Art is not found alone in painting and sculpture.  It is the domain of Minerva, who gave the distaff, as
well as of the Muses.  The lover of art sees it in " the Stones of
Venice," the iron scroll-work and armor of the middle ages, and
in the old tapestries of Versailles, —in every work of man's
hands which bears the impress of his soul. The sturdy honesty
of the English clothiers of former times, and their workmanlike
fidelity to tile canons of their ancient guild, made the oldfashioned cloth of England as sound and solid as English oak.
A hligher sentiment, a passion, as it were, for an ideal fineness
and nobility of fibre, incited the German flock-masters to create
the unparalleled  cloth wools which have given Silesia the
crown of the "golden fleece."  A passion for an ideal perfection of tissues inspires the master weavers and spinners of
France in their perpetual strife to conquer new fields for her
ilndustrial glory. It impels them to add, each year, to the fineless and softness of their threads, and the perfection of their
tissues, till their fabrics have become models which the spindles
and looms of all other nations are content to simulate, but fail
to imitate. All American industry needs to be vivified by such
aspirations.  Every earnest worker with such a purpose is a
blessing to his country and race.  As Mr. Ruskin said, in his
art lecture to the manufacturers of Bradford, " If you resolve
from the first, that, as far as you can ascertain what is best, you
will produce what is best, on an intelligent consideration of
tlhe probable tendencies and possible tastes of the people whom




67
you supply, you may literally become more influential for all
kinds of good than many lecturers on art, or many treatisewriters on morality."  I will add: By such noble work you
rise above the sphere of common labor; you become more than
workmen, -  more than artists, -  you become creators, imitators, though humble, still worthy, of the great Worker, the
infinite Maker. Indulge me a moment longer while I give you,
in the eloquent words of a great teacher now passed away,
the supreme example which is set for your labors.*  "A
thoughtful man for the first time goes to some carpet-mill in
Lowell.  He looks out of the window and sees dirty bales of
wool lying confusedly about as they were dropped fiom the
carts that brought them there.  Close at hand is the Merrimac
River, one end of it pressed against the New-Hampshire mountains and the sky far off, while the other crowds upon the milldam, and is going througll its narrow gate. Under the factory
it drives the huge wheel, whose turning keeps the whole town
ajar all day.  Above is the great bell which rings the river to
its work.  Before him are pullies and shafts.  Tle floor is
thick set with looms. There are rolls of various colored woollen
yarns; bits of card, pierced with holes, hang before the weaver,
who now pulls a handle, and the shuttles fly, wedding the woof
to the expectant warp, and the handsome fabric is slowly
woven up and rolled away.  Tlhe thoughtful man wonders at
the contrivance by which the Merrimac River is made to weave
such coarse materials into such beauty of form  and finish.
What a marvel of machinery it is! None of the weavers quite
understand it,-our visitor less. He goes off, wondering what a
head it must be which made the mill a tool by which the Merrimac transfigures wool and dye-stuffs into handsome carpets,
serviceable for chamber, parlor, staircase, or meeting-house."
"But, all day long, you and I,... and all the people in the
* Lessons from the World of Matter and the World of lMan, by Theodore Parker
Boston. 1865. p. 51.




68
world, are in a carpet-factory far more wonderful. What vast
forces therein spil and weave continually! What is the Merrimac River, which only reaches from the New-Hampshire mountains to the sea, compared to that river of GOD, on whose breast
the earth, the sun, the solar system, yea, the astral system, are
but bubbles which gleam, many-colored, for a moment, or but
dimple that stream, and which swiftly it whirls away?  What
is the fabric ot a Lowell mill to that carpet which GOD lays on
the floor of the earth from the Arctic Circle to the Antarctic,
or yet also spreads on tle bottom of the monstrous sea?  It is
trod under foot by all mankind. The elephant walks on it, and
the royal tiger.  What multitudes of sheep, swine, and horned
cattle, lie down there and take their rest!  What tribes of
beasts, insects, reptiles, birds, fishes, make a home there, or
feed thereon! Moths do not eat away this floor-cloth of the
land and sea. The snow lies on it.  The sun lurks there in
summer, the rain wets it all the year: yet it never wears out;
it is dyed in fast colors. Now and then the feet of armies in
their battles wear a little hole in this green carpet; but next
year a handsome piece of botanic rug-work covers up the wear
and tear of Sebastopol and Delhi, as of old it repaired the waste
of Marathon and Trasimenus.  Look! and you see no weaver,
no loom visible; but the web is always there on the ground and
under the sea.  The same Clothier likewise keeps the live
world tidy, and in good trim. How all the fishes are dressed
out,- those glittering in plate-armor, these only arrayed in their
vari-colored jerkins, such as no Moorish artist could paint!
How well-clad are the insects. With what suits of mail are
beetle and bee and ant furnished.  The coat of the buffalo
never pinches under the arm, never puckers at the shoulder; it
is always the same, yet never old fashioned, or out of date...
The pigeon and humming-bird wear their court-dress every
day, and yet it never looks dusty nor threadbare.  In this
grand clotliery of the world, every thing is clad in more beauty




69
than many-colored Joseph or imperial Solomon ever put on, yet
nobody sees the wheel, the loom, or the sewing machine of
this great Dorcas institution, which carpets the earth and
upholsters the heavens and clothes the people of the world with
more glory than the Queen of Sheba ever saw in her dream of
dress and love."




APPENDIX.
^^nim$ truf a    Utmo l ^Iqort
TIIE By-laws of the " National Association of'Wool Manufacturers"
make it the duty of the Secretary to prepare, under the direction of
the government, an annual report of the transactions and condition
of the Association.  The following is submitted in conformity with
this requirement:The want of some organization, capable of united and systematic
action, having long been felt among those engaged in the woollen
manufacture, a circular was addressed, on the tenth day of August,
1864, to those most directly interested in the matter.  In response to
this call, a large number of the leading wool manufacturers of the
country, from  Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware, and from  each of the six New-England States,
assembled in convention at Springfield, Mass., on the twelfth day of
October, 1864.  The Convention at that time resolved that it should
proceed to the formation of a " National Association of Wool Manufacturers."  To carry this resolution into effect, a committee was
appointed to prepare a plan of organization, and report at an adjourned meeting of the Convention, to be held on the 30th of November following.  The Convention having met on that day, and having
been dissolved, the Association was organized by adopting Articles
and By-laws which had been presented by the Committee, and by
choosing officers as therein described., Meetings of the government,
provided for. in the By-laws, were successively held at Boston,
M3ass., on the twenty-first day of December, 1864; at New York,
on tle fifteenthll dy of March, 1865; at New York, on the seventeenth (lay of May, 18(65; at Newport, R.I., on the twenty-sixth
day of July, 1865; and at Philadelphia, on the 6th of September.  These meetings were all numerously attended. At all of them
interestiing discussions took place upon questions relating to the inter



71
ests of the Association. Committees were also appointed, having in
charge the more important matters to be acted upon by the government. By the direction of the government, a statement was prepared
by the President of the "Objects and Plan" of the Association.
This has been printed and extensively circulated. It was regarded
by the government, that the first and most important duty of the
Association was to obtain information of the actual condition of
the woollen manufacture throughout the United States. With great
labor, a list of all persons known or believed to be engaged in the
woollen manufacture was prepared.  Circulars containing such interrogatories as would draw forth the desired information were sent to
all persons on this list, about 1,700 in all; 931 returns have been
received, representing 4,073 sets of machinery, and returns are coming in daily.  It is believed that by this means the Association will
be in possession of complete and accurate statistics of the woollen
machinery in operation in this country, the amount and description of
wool consumed, and the quantity and character of goods manufactured,-information indispensable for wise and just legislation in
matters affecting our interests. It is believed that no inquiries at
present pursued by the national Government will furnish a basis for
such legislation. It is the object of the government to place the
Association upon such a basis that it shall have weight in our national
councils, and that the interests of all the woollen manufacturers of
the country shall be fully represented and cared for. The government believe that they have accomplished all that could have been
expected in the few months of the existence of the Association, in
completing its organization and arranging its machinery. They have
not deemed it wise to attempt too much, or to make a display of their
operations. The value of such an organization exists most in its
silent and hardly appreciable influence; and time and patience are
necessary to secure that which is really useful and permanent. The
Association consists, at present, of 201 members; a number which,
it is hoped, may be greatly increased when our " Objects and Plans"
are more fully known.
Respectfully submitted,        JOHN  L. HAYES,
Secretary.




72
TABLE,
Sowwing the Value of Woollen Goods manufactured in the United States, for the Year
ending June 30, 1864.  Calculated from   Official Report of United-States Commissioner of Internal Revenue.
Cloths, and all
Manufacturers of   Textile, Knitted or  Manufacturers of
Felted Fabrics of
S T A T E S.                  WOOL           Felted Fabrics of   WORSTED         T o T A L
STATES.                       WOO                WOOL,           WORSTED         TOTAL.
not otherwise pro-  before dyed, printed, not otherwise provided for.    or prepared in any    vided for.
other manner.
Dollars.          Dollars.         Dollars.          Dollars.
MAINE........                      3,238,098.67       238,385.00....         3,476,483.67
NEW  HAMPSHIRE...      9,044,762.00        34,915.00....           9,079,677.00
VERMONT......                   3,145,933.67        562,788.00....          3,708,721.67
MASSACHUSETTS...              38,905,399.00        800,531.33       897,720.67      40,603,651.00
RHODE ISLAND.....                2,963,154.33      7,668,531.67       261,014.33      10,892,700.33
CONNECTICUT.....                11,873,763.67      3,913,965.00        78,912.33      15,866,641.00
NEW  YORIK....       10,850,180.00      2,214,802.67       912,792.33      13,977,775.00
NEW  JERSEY.....                 2,752,652.00        25,361.67            70.33       2,778,084.00
PENNSYLVANIA....             13,022,447.33     3,502,190.00        75,076.00      16,599,713.33
DELAWARE......            548,134.67........        548,134.67
MARYLAND.....                      450,385.33           1,526.67....           451,912.00
WEST VIRGINIA....                  58,486.00         5,267.00....             63,753.00
KENTUCKY......                     117,534.33        242,370.67....             359,905.00
MISSOURI....                         72,980.00          2,364.00.....            75,344.00
OHIO......                      1,315,243.00         85,634.67....           1,400,877.67
INDIANA.......                     545,128.33         11,794.33         1,692.67         558,615.33
ILLINOIS.......                    341,907.00         11,384.00         5,793.33         359,084.33
MICHIGAN......                     118,094.00        33,754.33....            151,848.33
WISCONSIN......        104,457.67            860.00....            105,317.67
IOWA........                       102,815.67        15,489.67....            118,305.33
MIINNESOTA......                      8,696.00           450.00....             9,146.00
KANSAS.......                       14,947.67........        14,947.67
CALIFORNIA.....        538)956.00.........           538,956.00
OREGON.......                     128,620.67.........          128,620.67
NEBRASKA TERRITORY..                    45.67.........               45.67
121,868,250.33




73
STATEMENT OF AGGREGATE RESULTS,
OBTAINED UP TO OCTOBER 25, 1865.
In Reply to Circulars of Feb. 24, 1865, and May 30, 1865, addressed to Wool Manufacturers.
Weekly         Weekly         Weekly       Per-              Mills
Returns   Sets      Consumption    Consumption    Consumption  centage  Average   to be
S T ATES.                   e-      Re-           of             of              of         of    Weekly   heard
ceived.  ported.   Scoured Wool, Domestic Wool, Foreign Wool, Foreign  per Set.
in Pounds.    in Pounds.      in Pounds.    Wool.             from.
MAINE........                       40       177         93,835         74,120          19,715      197      530      11
NEW  HAMPSHIRE...               69       361        217,110        174,841         42,269       192      601      28
VERMONT.......                    39       112         50,217         32,652         17,565       35       448      19'MASSACHUSETTS...             186      1,467        857,496        560,396        297,100      34~       585      74
RHODE ISLAND.....   61                340        188,775        152,967         35,808       19       555      15
CONNECTICUT.....         88       452        252,880        125,486        127,394      50~       559      43
NEW  YORK.......   154                     576        236,510        174,536         61,974      261       411    124
NEW  JERSEY.....                I11         64         33,660         25,238          8,422      25        526       7
PENNSYLVANIA:
Philadelphia.....              24        68         88,200         68,650         19,550       22k    1,297      98
Remainder of the State.          57        90         39,054         39,054....        434      69
DELAWARE......                      6        15         14,050         13,050           1,000       7k      937       4
MARYLAND......                     1         8          5,400          2,700          2,700      50        675       2
WEST VIRGINIA.................  1
OHIO........                     44         83         32,615         32,615......              392      34
INDIANA.......               47       103         51,200         51,200......         497       41
ILLINOIS.......               22        47         23,355         23,355......              497       13
MICHIGAN.......           20        26          9,660          9,660..                  372      12
WISCONSIN......                  13         25         10,800         10,800.                       432        6
MINNESOTA......                     1         2          1,200          1,200......       600        2
IOWA.........     15         43         17,658         17,658.                       411        6
MISSOURI.......                     10        21         16,650         16,650......        793        4
KENTUCKY......                     7        14          6,600          6,600......        400        7
KANSAS........              1         3          1,620          1,620.                    540        2
CALIFORNIA..............                            1
OREGON.......                      1         4          4,000          4,000......               1,000       1
NEBRASKA TERRITORY.......... 
TOTAL, Oct. 25, 1865..    917    4,100           2,252,545      1,619,038        633,497       28k      550    624
10




O    F I C E RS.
Vlesibent.
E. B. BIGELOW.............. BOSTON, MASS.
FicrsvresIbents.
T. S. FAXTON..............    UTICA, N.Y.
THEODORE POMEROY...........  PITTSFIELD, MASS.
SAMUEL BANCROFT............   MEDIA, PA.
Creasurer.
WALTER HASTINGS............ BOSTON, MASS.
Secretarg.
JOHN L. HAYES..............  BOSTON, MASS.
I trectt0.
Maine.                           Rehode Island.
R. W. ROBINSON, Dexter.             S. T. OLNEY, Providence.
J. H. BURLEIGH, South Berwick.      ROWSE BABCOCK, Westerly.
THOMAS S. LANG, N. Vassalboro'.                New York.
NAew Hamprshire.          A. J. WILLIAMS, Utica.
D. H. BUFFUM, Great Falls.          CHARLES STOTT, Hudson.
DANIEL HOLDEN, Concord.             EDWARD A. GREEN, New York.
Vermont.                          New Jersey.
S. WOODWARD, Woodstock.             JONAS LIVERMORE, Blackwoodtown.
SETH B. HUNT, Bennington.           DAVID OAKES, Bloomfield.
Mlassachusetts.                     Pennsylvania.
JESSE EDDY, Fall River.             S. W. CATTELL, Philadelphia.
S. BLACKINGTON, North Adams.        EMANUEL HEY,,,
JOSHUA STETSON, Boston.             JOHN COVODE, Lockport Station.
A. C. RUSSELL, Great Barrington.    CHARLES SPENCER, Germantown.
G. H. GILBERT, Ware.
C. W. HOLMES Monson.'
C. W. M, M       WILLIAM DEAN, Newark.
Connecticut.                        Mary
Maryland.
HOMER BLANCHARD, Hartford.          CHARLES WETHERED, Baltimore.
J. CONVERSE, Stafford Springs.
B. SEXTON, Warehouse Point.                       Ohio.
GEORGE KELLOGG, Rockville.          ALTON POPE, Cleveland.
GEORGE ROBERTS, Hartford.           A. P. STONE, Columbus.
Ztanting  Committee.
Finance.                         Raw Material.
J. W. EDMANDS, Boston, Mass.        GEORGE W. BOND, Boston, Mass.
EDWARD HARRIS, Woonsocket, R.I.    H. D. TELLKAMPF, New York, N.Y.
S. D. W. HARRIS, Rockville, Ct.     S. B. STITT, Philadelphia, Pa.
J. W. STITT, New York, N.Y.         T. S. FAXTON, Utica, N.Y.
BENJAMIN BULLOCK, Philadelphia, Pa.  J. J. ROBINSON, Rockville, Ct.
Statistics.                        Machinery.
R. G. HAZARD, Peacedale, R.I.       RICHARD GARSED, Frankford, Pa.
JAMES ROY, West Troy, N.Y.          J. K. KILBOURN, Pittsfield, Mass.
ARCHIBALD CAMPBELL, Manayunk,Pa.  C. H. ADAMS, Cohoes, N.Y.
N. KINGSBURY, Hartford, Ct.         ESTUS LAMB, Blackstone, Mass.
J. V BARKER, Pittsfield, Mass.      ROBERT MIDDLETON, Utica, N.Y




LIST OF MEMBERS.
MAINE.
GALEN C. MOSES.............. Bath.
NEWICHAWANOCK CO., J. E. Burleigh, Ag't....  So. Berwick.
DEXTER MILLS, B. W. Robinson, Ag't......  Dexter.
S. O. BROWN............ Dover.
ANSON P. MORRILL.........   Readfield.
THOMAS S. LANG..............No. Vassalboro'.
NEW  HAMPSHIRE.
J. M. BABCOCK & CO.,............ Barnstead.
B. F. & D. HOLDEN............    West Concord.
ALMON HARRIS.............Fisherville.
GREAT-FALLS WOOLLEN CO., D. H. Buffum, Ag't...Great Falls.
D. HENSHAW WARD, Ag't Ashuelot Manufacturing Co.. Keene.
MOSES SARGENT, Jr..............  Lake Village.
MILTON MILLS, E.. M.udge, Sawyer & Co., Ag'ts.. Milton.
VERMONT.
SETH B. HUNT.............. Bennington.
HOLMES, WHITTEMORE, & CO......... Springfield.
BURLINGTON WOOLLEN Co., J. Stetson, Treas.... Winooski.
SOLOMON WOODWARD.......... Woodstock.
MASSACHUSETTS.
S. BLACKINTON..........                   No. Adams.
S. W. BRAYTON & CO..............  
DEAN & LA MONTE.............So. 
GEORGE L. DAVIS.............No. Andover.
N. STEVENS & SONS.............,
ASSABET MANUF'G CO., T. Quincy Browne, Treas... Assabet.
MILLER'S-RIVER MANUF'G Co., Geo. T. Johnson, Ag't.. Athol.
C. P. TALBOT & CO.............. Billerica.
ESTUS LAMB............... Blackstone.
R. M. BAILEY.............. Boston.
ERASTUS B. BIGELOW............,




76
GEORGE WILLIAM BOND........... Boston.
GARDNER BREWER & Co............,
GARDNER COLBY...............
J. C. CONVERSE, BLAGDEN, & C...........
REUBEN S. DENNEY.............,
J. WILEY EDMANDS.............,
GEORGE L. HARWOOD............ 
WALTER HASTINGS.............,
JAMES L. LITTLE...............
AMORY MAYNARD..............
ADOLPIUS MERRIAM3..............
CIARLES MEIRRIAM..............
PERRY & WENDELL.............,
GEORGE W. RYLEY.............
M. H. SIMPSON..............,,
JOHN -H. STEPHENSON.............
AUSTIN SUMNER, Treas. Merch. Woollen Co., Dedham,  ass.,,
HENRY V. WARD, Treas. Lawrence M/anufacturing Co...
C. L. HARDING.............. Cambridge.
FRENCH & WARD......... Canton.
I)AMON, SMITH, & CO............ Concord.
THOMAS BARROWS............. DIedham.
DIGHTON WOOLLEN CO., William C. Whitridge, Pres.. Dighton.
JESSE EDDY, & SON.......... Fall River.
F. B. RAY............ Franklin.
ALLAN CAMERON.............  Graniteville.
BERKSHIRE WOOLLEN Co., A. C. Russell, Ag't.... Gt. Barrington.
F. W. HINSDALE & BROTIIER.........  Hinsdale.
PLUNKETT WOOLLEN Co., C. J. Kittredge, Pres... 
AUGUST STEUSBERG.........Holyoke.
D. D. CROMBIE.............. Lawrence.
GEORGE A. FULLER.............,
PACIFIC MILLS, W. C. Chapin, Ag't........
WASHINGTON MILLS, Joshua Stetson, Treas..... 
ELIZUR SMITH........... Lee.
BALDWIN Co., P. Anderson, Ag't and Treas.....Lowell.
ISAAC FARRINGTON............. 
STAR MILLS, George Brayton, Treas.......  Middleboro'.
S. U. CIHURCH & BROTHER.......... Middlefield.
CRANE & WATERS.......... Millbury.
M. & S. LAPHAM..............,,
NELSON WALLING.............,
HIAMPDEN COTTON MANUF'G Co., C. W. Holmes, Ag't. Monson.
LOAM SNOW, Pres. Star Mills, Middleboro', Mass.... New Bedford.
BURROUGH & BARTLETT........... No. Oxford.




77
W. R. PARKS.............                             Palmer.
JOHN V. BARKER & BROTHER...... Pittsfield.
PECK & KILBOURN.........  Pittsfield.
PITTSFIELD WOOLLEN CO............,
L. POMEROY'S SONS..............,
S. N. & C. RUSSELL............ 
D. & H. STEARNS............,
TACONIC MILLS, George Y. Learned, Treas..... 
SALISBURY MILLS, John Gardner, Treas., Boston... Salisbury.
C. ALDEN...............Springfield.
JOHN L. KING................,
C. E. PARSONS................
J. Z. & C. GOODRICH & Co..........     Stockbridge.
S. W. SCOTT................Uxbridge.
GEORGE H. GILBERT & CO...... Ware.
CHARLES A. STEVENS.......
S. H. SIBLEY............... Waren.
L. M. CAPRON & SONS............ Webster.
RAVINE MANUFACTURING Co......... So. Wilbraham.
SCANTIC MANUFACTURING Co., L. E. Sage, Ag't...,,,,
ADRIATIC MILL, Granville M. Clark, Treas.....    Worcester.
H. H. CHAMBERLAIN & CO..........,,
CURTIS & MURDOCK.............,
RHODE ISLAND.
H. SAYLES & SON.............. Pascoag.
R. G. HAZARD..............  Peacedale.
ATLANTIC DELAINE CO., George W. Chapin, Treas... Providence.
WILLIAM G. BUDLONG............,
CHAPIN & DOWNES.............,
TAFT, WEEDEN, & Co.........,
WAINSKUCK Co., S. T. Olney, Treas.......,
ROWSE BABCOCK.............. Westerly.
BROWN & CLARK.............. 
EDWARD HARRIS............. Woonsocket.
CONNECTICUT.
THOMAS CROSSLEY............. Bridgeport.
BROAD-BROOK Co., B. E. Hooker, Treas......  Broad Brook.
A. C. DUNHAM.................... Hartford.
HARTFORD CARPET CO., George Roberts, Treas.... 
HOME WOOLLEN Co., H. Blanchardreas.....
N. KINGSBURY & CO............. 




78
THAMES WOOLLEN CO., B. G. Hooper, Ag't.... Montville.
THOMAS LEWIS........... Naugatuck.
NEW-BRITAIN KNITTING Co., John B. Talcott, Sec... New Britain.
UNION MANUFACTURING Co.......... Norwalk.
WILLIAM ELTING, Ag't Elting Woollen Co...... Norwich.
YANTIC MILLS, by E. Winslow Williams.......
AMERICAN MILL, J. J. Robinson, Ag't....... Rockville.
FLORENCE MILLS, George Kellogg, jr., Ag't.....
S. D.. HARRIS..............,
HOCKANUM Co., George Maxwell, Ag't.......,,
NEW-ENGLAND Co., Allen Hammond, Ag't.....
ROCK MANUFACTURING CO., George Kellogg, Ag't... 
JOSEPH SELDEN........
E. H. HYDE............. Stafford.
MINERAL-SPRINGS MANUF'G Co., J. Converse, Treas... Stafford Springs.
MILL-RIVER WOOLLEN MANUF'G Co., Tios. S. Hall, Pres. Stamford.
TERRY MANUF'G Co., by Henry K. Terry.....   Thomaston.
EAST-WINDSOR WOOLLEN Co., B. Sexton, Pres.... Warehouse Pt.
GLENVILLE MILLS, A. D. Le Fevre.......  Waterbury.
WATERBURY MILLS, John W. Whittal.......,,
DALEVILLE MILLS, Ed. H. Robinson, Pres....Willington.
SEQUASSEN WOOLLEN Co., William W. Billings, Ag't. Windsor.
P.. C. ALLEN................ Windsorville.
LOUNSBURY, BISSELL, & CO.......... Winnepauk.
NORWALK MILLS, by Charles C. Betts.......,,
DANIEL CURTIS & CO...........Woodbury.
NEW   YORK.
STEAM WOOLLEN Co., S. Harris, Ag't....... Catskill.
C. H. ADAMS............... Cohoes.
ALDEN, FRINK, & WESTON...........
JOSEPH H. PARSONS.............,
A. E. STIMSON, Treas..............
LEVI YANNEY............... Ephratah.
GLENHAM Co., William M. Dart, Ag't....... Glenham.
CHARLES STOTT.............. Hudson.
SAXONY WOOLLEN CO............ Little Falls.
A. VAN SICKLER.......           Madrid.
CHESTER MOSES & CO.... Marcellus.
P. S. HAINES................ Newburg.
J. HARRISON..............
EDWARD A. GREEN............. New York.
ELIAS S. HIGGINS.............. 
SAMUEL LAWRENCE.....            b.....  
LITTLE & DANA...............,




79
L. J. STIASTNY............. New York.
J. W. STITT............ 
H. STARSBURG.......... 
H. D. TELLKAMPF............ 
ALLEN & GIBSON............. Otto.
A. L. CLARK & CO.............. Philmont.
S. W. GREGORY.............  Plattsburg.
ELIAS TITUS & SONS............. Poughkeepsie.
H. WATERBURY............... Renssalaerville.
SCIAGHTICOKE WOOLLEN MILLS, Amos Briggs, Pres.. Schaghticoke.
ISAAC R. BLANVELT............. Spring Valley.
P. W. HART................Stamford.
TROY MANUFACTURING Co., by Azro B. Morgan... Troy.
TROY WOOLLEN CO., by James S. Knowlton.....
JAMES ROY & Co.............. West Troy.
PETER CLOGER, Ag't Utica Steam Woollen Co.....  Utica.
EMPIRE WOOLLEN CO., A. J. Williams...... 
T. S. FAXTON................
GLOBE WOOLLEN Co., Robert Middleton, Ag't....
LESTER STONE...............   Westfield.
NEW JERSEY.
JONAS LIVERMORE.............   Blockwoodtown.
DAVID OAKES & SON.............Bloomfield.
CAMDEN WOOLLEN CO., S. B. Stitt, Treas., Philadelphia. Camden.
S. & R. DUNCAN.............   Newark.
NORFOLK & NEW BRUNSWICK HOSIERY Co.... New Brunswick.
PENNSYLVANIA.
WALDO & SON.............. Arcade.
JAMES IRVING............... Chester.
FREMONT WOOLLEN Co., by B. Garsed...... Frankford.
SAMUEL RIDDLE.............. Glen Riddle.
JOHN COVODE.............. Lockport Stat'n.
A. CAMPBELL & CO...............  Manayunk.
EDWARD HOLT................
H. S. HUIDEKOPER.......Meadville.
SAMUEL BANCROFT............. Media.
EDWARD H. AMIDON............ Philadelphia.
BENJAMIN BULLOCK'S SONS..........,
H. N. BRUNER...............,
S. W. CATTELL, Lincoln Mills.......,
CAMPBELL & POLLOCK, Continental Woollen Mill...,
WILLIAM DIVINE..........
THOMAS DOLAN.................




80
SAMUEL ECCLES, Jr.............. Philadelphia.
GEORGE P. EVANS...........,
EMANUEL IEY................
B. H. JENKS................,,
CHARLES SPENCER..............,
DELAWARE.
WILLIAM DEAN............... Newark.
MARYLAND.
WETHERED, BROTHERS, & NEPHEWS.......Baltimore.
OH I O.
GLASER & BROTHERS............ Cincinnati.
ALTON POPE & SONS............   Cleveland.
COLUMBUS WOOLLEN MANUF'G Co., A. P. Stone, Pres.. Columbus.
INDIANA.
SCHAEFFER, RIMROTH, & Co.......... Evansville.
MICHIGAN.
WILLIAM WALLACE............. Battle Creek.
P. S. LYMAN................ Corunna.
H. R. GARDNER............ Jonesville.
JOHN NICOL................St. Clair.
HONORARY MEMBERS.
Hon. HENRY S. RANDALL......          Cortland Vill., N.Y.
Hon. JUSTIN S. MORRILL...... Vermont.
Hon. ISAAC NEWTON, Commissioner of Agriculture. Washington, D.C.