Los Angeles herald., 1909-05-22
Abandoned Industries
By Frederic L HaSkin

Now that industry is dead. One of the
few vegetable coloring substances left
on the market is anato, which is used
in tinting butter.
Fifty years ago it was believed that
the cultivation of sorghum would open
up an unlimited supply of sugar. MIL
lions of dollars were spent in America
in experimenting with this native plant
of Africa and China. Millions of acres
were planted, principally in the west.
Expensive factories were built to con-
vert its Juice into sugar. The United
States government fell a victim to the
craze. 1t took the country thirty years
to recover it's equilibrium after it was
discovered that sorghum could not be
depended upon to make sugar The sor-
ghum crop has been dwindling steadi-
ly for number of years, and nearly all
that is raised is used for cattle feed.
The rise of King Cotton and the ever
present labor problem are chiefly re-
sponsible for the decline and almost
total disappearance of the flax and
hemp Industries in this country. In
the DAYS of our grandfathers, and even
of our fathers, nearly every family
raised it's own supply of flax and
hemp, which was converted into cloth
ing, cordage, etc, on the place. Many
thousand acres of flax and hemp were
and the Mississippi river.
Years ago it became apparent that it
would be cheaper to import hemp and
fax from abroad than to pay high
wages to American workinsmen in
those industries, while their foreign
competitors we're receiving a few cents
a day in Russia, Ireland and other
countries. Jute produced for few
cents a pound in India is being widely
substituted for hemp. Cotton is pro-
duced much cheaper than linen and
hemp and Is better adapted to modern
machine methods of manufacture. At
present the cultivation of hemp has
practically ceased everywhere except
in Kentucky, while only compare
lively few acres of fax are cultivated
in Michigan, the Dakotas and one or
two other states for seed production.
Two important Indian industries have
been tried by the white men, but not
found commercially practicable. The
wild rice of Minnesota and Wisconsin
feeds 10000 Indians, but the white man
knows 1t not. In Oregon there are
thousands of acres of water lilies COW
ering stretches of shallow water and
marsh land, from which the Indians
obtain a delectable seed for food. This
has been put on the market, but it has
failed to sell. Many native wild berries
and fruits, long familiar to the Indians,
formerly constituted the bases of more
or less extensive industries among the
whites, but have Ions since been aban-
doned. Such was the fate of the bay
berry wax industry of New England.
The tea industry in the United States
is said by the agricultural department
to be hanging on by it's eyelids, figura-
lively speaking. The competition of
cheap foreign labor is endangering its
life, although the superior quality of
the South Carolina product has so far
saved it. The average Wholesale price
of tea is IL cents a pound and the
American producer will have to meet
that price in the end, unless he gets a
protective tariff
During the sixties there was an ex-
tensive peat industry along the Atlantic
coast, which has practically been aban-
doned. AT the time it f1ourished coal
mining was at standstill, on account
of the war. Now peat is only used
lacally for fuel and fertilizer There is
an ineXhaustible supply of this product
in boys and swamps covering many
millions of acres Perhaps the peat in
dustry will be revived when coal has
become scarce
In the animal kingdom one of the
most interesting of abandoned Ameri-
can industries is the breeding of cam
els. Two shiploads of these animals
Secretary of War Jefferson Davis in
1856 and 1857 for military uses on the
western plains and deserts The anil
mails were placed in Texas and Califor-
MIA, but proved of little use. The last
of them was sold at auction in 1866
though some are said to have grown
wild.
The breeding of the famous Cones
toga draft horse used in Pennsylvania
to haul heavy loads across the noun
tains before the days of the railroad
was utterly abandoned many years ago
To prevent the Morgan horse, the ideal
American carriage strain, from becorn-
ing extinct the government has recent
ly begun breeding them in Vermont
Malta milk goats were formerly raised
here, but the enterprise has been given
up on account of a peculiar disease
contracted by the animals. The breed
ing of the Vermont merino sheep,
which had very wrinkled skin bear
ing as much as fifty pounds of wool
has almost ceased. A decade or more
ago the Belgian hare was extensively
bred and millions were invested in tho
industry. Now it is of no commercial
Importance whatever
In the nature of side. lines in aban-
doned animal industries are beaver hat
making and the horse meat business
Formerly every gentleman had a hat
made of beaver skins. When the ami
mails became scarce beaver" hats were
made of silk and now that material Is
preferred. Ten years ago Samuel Kins-
man of Linton, Ore, did thriving
trade in horse meat. His product was
shipped to Norway and Denmark. He
bought animals from the Indians at
$3.50 a head, slaughtered them In gov
eminent inspected abattoirs and packed
the meat like South American jerked
beef In 1900 he slaughtered $500 horses,
abandoned in 1908, when 344 horses were
killed.
Copyright, 1909. by Frederic J. Haskin.)