The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1873-02-20
1onss, 8arm anD sarnen.
WESTERN Wool AND Wool MANUFAc-
TURES.

WESTERN Wool AND Wool MANUFAc
| TURES.
| From advance sheets of the Census Re
port and other documents We are enabled
| to give our readers some interesting fact;
concerning the wool growing and wool
! manufacturing interest. of the West. Ii
| would lie easier, perhaps. to derive from
these sources somewhat wider generaliza
| tons; yet, as the western section ot oul
conntry presents IN substantial com plete
ness the CO ordinate conditions of pro
ducers, manufacturers, and consumers oi
| wool. and these interests are daily becom'
ing better defined ard BID fair to present
| ly overshadow all the other industrial in.
terests of the West, it may be sufficiently
| instructive to confine our considerations
| to the statistics especially bearing upon
the growth and the relation of these in.
terests in the West. Our view will be
necessarily restricted to the changes o
the past ten years. dating from 1860
Prior to that period the WOO
interest of this section had no ap'
preciable development. In 1850 Wiscon
sin had four wooden mills and Iowa had
one, while California. Kansas, Minnesota,
and Oregon had none. The real growth
of Western wool interests is to be seen
from comparisons within the last decade.
In 1860, Wisconsin had fifteen estab-
lishments with nineteen sets of cards ::
in 1870, it had sixty four mills and one
hundred and thirty-one sets. The West
ern States, not including the Pacific WOOL
growing States, had altogether, in 1860.
80? mills running 466 sets; in 1870,
they had 9lO mills with LISP sets. The
Pacific States, California, and Oregon,
had, 1860, two mills with ten sets: in
1870, eleven mills with sixty-eight sets.
The ratio of increase in the manufactur-
ing capacity of the Western States for
wooden fabrics during these ten years has
therefore been 375 per cent. Meanwhile.
the growth of woolen- manufactures in
the New England States has been as fol-
lows: in 1860. mills 1893, sets. 1864 in
1872. mills sos, sets 2,507-ratio o. in
crease 2l0 per cent. During the same
period the statistics for the Middle States
are in 1860, mills 476, sets 920; in $40
mills 7S9, sets 2. 364-ratio of increase
257. In 1850 Massachusetts, lead all the
States in the manufacture of wool, and
it leads them still. Meanwhile Pennsyl-
vania, then behind New York and Con
necticut. is now ahead of them. The
above comparison of ratios demonstrates
the velocity with which the centre of wool
consumption in the United States is
travelling westward In 1850 it lay some
where between Boston and Worcester. 1t
is now somewhere west of Pennsylvania.
in Ohio, and rapidly moving yet further
west.
A fact to be noticed in this connection
is the intimate relations of the wool man.
ufacturing with the wool-producing inter-
ests of the West. We have heretofore
pointed % this relation as exempli6ed
in the history of the wool manufactures
of Wisconsin 1t has been observed that
factories invariably spring up on the heels
of sheep husbandry. The business of
exchanging the manufactured product
for raw material directly at the mills, so
saving all the costs of double trasporta-
tion and large army of middle men, is a
leading item with all our mills OF the
five million pounds of Wisconsin's clip
for 1872 over three millions will be work
ed up IN this way to the reciprocal ad
vantage of manufacturer, producer, and
the consumer of wooden goods This
great. increasing manufacture of the
West is entirely dependent upon the pro-
ductiou of domestic woods. There seems
to be no limit to the growth of this inter
est in this section, beyond the disposition
of Western farmers In the matter of i'm
proving and increasing their focks.-
Whatever there is to say respecting the
westward tendency of the wool manufac-
lures of the country is expressly calcula-
ted for the encouragement of Western
farmers in the cultivation of sheep hus-
bardry. Already the manufacture of
wool in Wisconsin ranks third in the
manufactures OF the States, after iron and
the conversion of logs into rough lumber;
while the raising of wool ranks among
our agricultural interests, we believe,
next to the staple cereals.-Mluaukee
Journal Of Commerce.