LEA THER-MAKING. 



339 



does not lose the use of his land. He plants other crops between 

 the rows and does not lose a single year. But of course no ordi- 

 nary annual crop can yield a profitable return on the price he will 

 have to pay for land known to be adapted to almonds. 



The almond, most precious by weight of all orchard products, 

 involves the least labor, care, anxiety, expense, and skill of all, 

 except perhaps the prune. In recent years it has never yielded 

 the fabulous returns occasionally realized by the growers of al- 

 most every other fruit and nut. It never yields, as the orange 

 has, a competence for life in a single year from ten acres. Its 

 reasonable expectations are about one hundred dollars net per 

 acre. 



The old Latin form of the word almond (Amygdala) furnishes 

 the name whereby botanists designate the genus to which belong 

 its two species (A. communis, the sweet, and A. amara, the bitter 

 almond), and the peach (A. persica). 



LEATHER-MAKING. 



By GEOEGE A. KICH. 

 XV. DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 



ZADOCK PRATT, the great leather manufacturer, once gave 

 as his toast at a notable trade dinner, " There is nothing like 

 leather." The determined, enterprising spirit indicated by that 

 sentiment may be said to be the distinguishing mark of the mod- 

 ern tanner, and it is possible that therein lies the explanation 

 why one in tracing the course of that industry must look so 

 largely to recent years for progress and development. But the 

 course of this development furnishes an interesting commentary 

 upon the application, or more accurately, perhaps, the lack of 

 application, of the principles of science to this one of the indus- 

 trial arts. Now, the art of tanning is one in which a knowledge 

 of science, especially of chemical science, could be made to do 

 most effective service. The operation is essentially a chemical 

 one. Yet, as a matter of fact, since the first demonstration of the 

 union of gelatin and tannin, chemistry has done almost nothing 

 to facilitate the operation. It is not to that that the industry 

 owes its remarkable progress ; rather, it is to the invention of 

 improved apparatus for hastening old processes. Just estimate, 

 of course, must be made of the fact that the scientific knowledge 

 of the principles involved in tanning did much to make these 

 inventions possible. At the same time, however, as Mr. C. T. 

 Davis has remarked in his admirable treatise upon leather : " Take 



