Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-01-09
PECULIAR INDUSTRIES.
Some OF the Queer Things Made
in the State of Maine.

How wooden Tootbpichs and Thread Spools
Arc Made SIlne-Pegs by the Bushel
The Making: of Leather Moe
casins on a Large Scale.
There is an industry which gives employ
ment TO hundreds of peeplein this section
of the State which owes its origin to a whit
tier, writes a Pittsburgh Dispatch CORE
sp0ndent from Maine. This is the making
OF wooden toothpicks. There is factory in
/ this town which turns them out at the rate
OF knew not how many thousand per day,
and there are many similar factories in
number Of neighboring villages. Aside
from the men and boys directly employed in
the production of these useful little articles
many others are benefited by the industry
The farmer who owns the trees, the woods
man who chops them down and the teamster
who hauls the timber to the factory, each
comes in for a share of the money paId out
by the toothpick manufacturers.
The wood sells for 8 toS4 SO per cord at the
| factory, and as each factory takes from GO
to 1880 cords per year quite respectable
| amount is paid out for raw material alone
The wood used is white birch and poplar.
and must be straight grained and without
Knots, so there is necessarily good deal of
waste. 1t Is estimated that enough tooth
pms sAi AlidOC III each year lOaQ a
freight train of fifty cars In round num-
bers the toothpicks number 5000, 900 600. or
about seventy-seven picks for each man,
woman and child in the United States That
would scarcely be enough; but the tooth
| pick consumers need not be alarmed, for
| there are several factories devoted to this
industry outside Of Maine
| The inventor of the wooden toothpick is
still living and still making toothpicks. He
was IN South America when he made the
first box, and he got the idea from the ma
tlves, who seem also to have penchant for
whiting. Well, he employed his leisure
time in whiting out box of picks, which
he sent home to his wife. She gave part
| OF them to a hotelkeeper, and his guests
| liked them so well that he at once ordered
| large quantity. The man in South Amer
lea smiled when he got the letter, but at
once engaged number of natives and set
them to whiting.
| Next he returned to his native town in
Maine and went to inventing. In due time
| he had a machine that would make picks
! about ten thousand times as fast as the
! sWiftest South American whittier, and
since 1860 he has been doing his best to sun
| ply the world with toothpicks. He has so
| perfected his machine that one operative can
make hfteen thousand picks per minute
| bis business rivals are numerous and
toothplcks are cheap in spite of the fact
| that there is said to be a sort of toothpick
| trust controlling the production.
another peculiar industry which flourish
! es IN Western Maine is the making of thread
spools They are cut from smooth, white
| birch timber, wood which works easily, by
| various kinds of improved machines There
! are numerous mills throughout the lumber
! bearing region where the birch is sawed into
strips about four feet long and from one to
two inches in width and thickness. These
| strips then go TO the spool factories to be
! converted into spoolS. The processes are
| numerous, but, with one exception, not par
! tlcularly interesting. The method of polish
ing the spools is novel and original. A bar
! rel IS filled nearly full of them and then re-
voved by means of machinery and betting
| until the spools are worn smooth by rub
bing one against another Spool manufact-
uring is the most important industry in sew
/ eral of the villages of Oxford County and
will doubtless continue so until the supply
of white birch timber gives out.
can remember the time when Yankee
| shoe-makers cut their pegs themselves.
| Iney would saw off a white birch log, leaA-
ing smooth and even, then pillow little fur
rows across it in two directions with an
! instrument, which believe they called peg
cutter. Then enough of the wood was sawed
! OFF to make the pegs the right length and
the block was split up INTO pegs by using a
/ knife don't suppose any body makes
| pegs that way now. They are cut by ma
chinery from white birch and maple and
| New England supplies the whole country
Pegs are worth from 35 TO % cents bushel
| at the factories.
Up In Bangor there is firm styling itself
| compress company and it's business is
| baling sawdust Sawdust. shavings, etc.
| are taken from the savy-mills and planning
mills in tram-cars to the compreseiG mill
and there squeezed until converted into an
! almost impregnable mass Large quanti-
| ties are used by various manufacturers for
| different purposes.
Turning from the wooden products of
this woody region l will mention one dis
hncCively Yankee industry and then con-
clude this letter. The making of leather
moccaslns is carried on in this State quite
extensively. Now, Maine has not great
many Indians, but she has thousands of
lumbermen, and each lumberman wears
/ moccaslnS In winter.
The Indians, if they were all moccasn-
makers, couldn't begin to supply the mar
ket, so the moccasin factory takes hold and
! helps them out. A moccasin, by the way.
! is a sewed boot, made without sole leather,
the top and the bottom being off the same
piece The leather is tanned by a peculiar
process which makes its color a yellowish
white 1t is soft and flexible and very easy
on the feet Each pair of boots is made
large enough to hold the owners feet and
two or three pairs of stockings, thus en-
aiding the lumberman to defy snow and
cold The moccasins are not of deer skin,
but of leather made of the hides of cattle.
They are cheaper than cowhide boots and
the woodsmen greatly prefer them. There
is not a country store in the whole State
| where they are not kept for sale.