Huntsville gazette., 1883-06-16
The Cracker Industry.

About $25, Zoo, 900 are invested in the
manufacture of bread, cracker and 9TH
er bakery products in this country,
representing some 1000 establishments,
$45, ,OOO, 900 in materials, giving an an
nual production of $40, 900, 600. 1t fas
almost passed into proverb that few
bakers die rich. However that may
be, we know that there are many men
who have become wealthy in the cracker
business. The manufacture OF the
cracker has become an important spe-
cialty in bakery products.
The origin of the cracker, as dis
tinct article of bread food, is enveloped
in mystery. Shakespeare may have had
some reference to it when he suggested
the conundrum, sWhat cracker is this
same that deafs our earsy' having re-
ceived, perhaps, violent blow on the
ear with a piece of "hard tack. The
unearthing of debris in subterranean
Pompeii and Herculaneum has brought
to light specimens Of petrified circular
and fiat substances very much resemb-
ling the cracker Of the present day,
which once might have been on sale in
the bread-shops of those unfortunate
cities. But as an article entering into
the domestic economy the cracker is of
modern use, and in some respects is
necessity.
The food preparations of Massachu-
sets represent a total product OF about
100000 annually, and included in
this is the manufacture of the cracker,
in its various forms, conditions and
qualities, from the large pilot-bread
cracker to the cracker no larger than a
ten-cent piece. A leading cracker manu-
facturer has on his private scale of
prices no less than seventy-five different
kinds of the edible, combining all sorts
and sizes, embracing commons and
sweets, plains and fantasies, hards and
softs, regulars and irregulars, rounds
and squares-in fact, varieties sufficient
to satisfy the demand and the appetite
of the most exacting plebeian or other
wise.
In the city Of Boston some $4,000, 900
are invested in the production of food
products, no small part of which is in
the manufacture of the cracker. The
business here is practically confined to
a dozen establishments, several of
whose ovens are located in Cambridge
The Boston cracker is an article of
bread food as familiar as household
word. 1t is eaten in all climes, even
under the scorching rays of the torrid
zone. 1t stands for civilization and
peaceful conquest. 1t represents the
acme of cracker-making.
The demand for the cracker grows
with the growth of the country, and as
an article of foreign export it is assum-
ing considerable Importance. One lead
ing manufacturer-whose establishment
is the largest and best appointed in this
section of the country, employing
large number of hands and consuming
hundreds of barrels of flour weekly
now exports his products not only to
Chicago and the West, but to foreign
points, even so far away as Australia
and New Zealand. The largest cracker
makers purchase their flour by special
contract with Western millers and Sc
cure special rates of freight. thus OBJ
tanning their chief material at bottom
prices. One of the marked features of
the cracker business is its peddler trade,
by which not only stores throughout
the country towns are supplied, but al
so families regularly at stated prices.
No well-regulated family is now with
out its box of crackers in the house.
The greatest care is taken in boxing
crackers. The name of the packer is
written on a slip of paper, which is in
closed with each box, and in case the
box is returned for good reasons the
packer, as penalty for his or her care
lessness, is obliged to forfeit the price
of the box. We do not know that this
rule prevails among all the cracker
makers. but it certainly does with one
large concern whose goods have become
famous.
Cracker-making has become quite an
art and. coupled with the machinery
now used in connection with the bust
ness. ranks among the crafts that were
instituted in the early days of the trades
when to know the art of doing trade
well was to be in the possession of
secret. Indeed, some housewives would
only be too glad to know how to make
the famous Boston cracker Boston
Commercial Buletin.
Not the Cloth.