Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-12-25
BRooMs THAT SWEEP CLEAN.
Thousands Turned. Out by Georgetown
Factory.
From the Washington Star.


How many housekeepers in Washington
who do some sweeping themselves or have
other people do it for them ever take the
trouble to consider how broom is made
To begin with, the sticks mostly come
from Michigan. They are made of bass
wood or maple, which grow plentiful in
that State, and afford material that COM
bines the advantages of lightness and
strength. The wood is turned with lathes
into broomsticks, with hole through each
end-one of them intended for the house
keepers string to hang the instrument up
by. Some of the sticks are left of their
natural hue and others are painted red, to
satisfy the tastes of all sorts of purchasers.
The rest of the broom is made of straw
chiefly, and this material is obtained from
sort of corn plant grown expressly for
the purpose. Doubtless you have noticed
the tassel on an ordinary corn stalk. What
the tassel is to the edible corn is found in
the wisp that grows from the top of the
broom corn, which bears no ears at all
There are two kinds of broom corn,
Misunderstanding coarse sort for ordi-
nary sweeping and the fine dwarf sort for
"parlor brooms' and whisks. The fine
stuff is plucked by hand, while the coarse
variety is cut with the knife 1t is in
bales of 800 pounds each that the material
reaches such factory as there is over in
Georgetown, which produces 5000 brooms
every year to help scoop up the sweepings
of the District of Columbia.
Perhaps you would like to know how a
broom is made. To begin with, the wisp
tassels cut from the corn tops must be as
sorted as to length. This process is per-
formed by an expert who takes the wisps
from the bale and distributes them among
a series of compartments. The broom
wisps thus assorted go into the hands of a
man who holds the broomstick in a revolv-
ing wise with its end projecting end,
that is to say, which is to be the broom.
This operator first passes a fine wire
through the hole in the end of broom
stick, and by the aid of treadle makes
the length of wood revolve until it has
taken up three or four bindings of the
wire from a great coil below. Then he
grabs number of wisps of long-stemmed
broom corn, to serve for what is known
technically as "handle stuff" fastening
them to the stick high up with wlndings
of the wire. All the time while the wire
| is wrapping the straw upon the stick it is
made to bind more tightly by blows from
hammer. Next is bound around the
embryo broom what is called the ''shoul-
| der stuff with shorter stems, which, as
| was the case with the handle stuff, is
| trimmed off close above the wire binding
with a sharp knife. Stalks yet shorter,
| from which the stems have been cut off en-
tirely, are finally wound upon the outside
! with more wire, and the whole business is
clinched and fastened where the broom
meets the stick with strong belt of tin
ned brass, its corrugated edge bound down
| with wire so that the straw is made as
much part of the broom handle as if it
grew upon it.
Now the broom goes to the sewer, who
passes faxen Irvine around its middle and
| pierces the substance of the broom through
and through with needle provided with
similar haxen cord, SO as to bind the straw
together closely. Now it only remains to
chop the straw ends of the brooms off even
with sort of cleaver knife, and to comb
the seeds out of them with revolving ma
chine armed with teeth in order to make
them ready for market. A frst.class
broom is bought by dealers at from SO 25
to 81 a dozen, and sold at from 81 80 to
| yt on IcldAs COuc UEOOIlls, IOI u6GVv
sweeping of ships decks and outdoors, cost
Sc dozen. The coarse straw is best for
those. You can calculate the profits of
the manufacture for yourself when you are
informed that broomsticks, white or red,
cost Sl4 thousand, while the straw is 81
cents pound for the best of it, and an or
binary broom contains q pounds of this
latter material. Broom corn that is slight
~ green is much better for the purpose
than the ripe material, because the latter
is brittle. and, on this account, to deceive
purchasers, it used to be the custom for
manufacturers of brooms to tint their ma
terial green with the fumes of birthstone.
At present the same effect is mere cheaply
obtained by soaking the stuff in colored
mixture. Supplies of broom corn for this
country are chiefly secured from Chicago
and Philadelphia, to which points the
farmers ship their broom corn product,
consigning it to commission men, who sell
it to the manufacturers.
One sheep-raiser recently sold at Albu-
queroue, n. NJ, 200 600 pounds of merino