346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



houses should be built in every county at the county charge, and 

 that provision should be made for the employment of tanners and 

 curriers. The rates of hides and shoes were fixed, and stringent 

 efforts were made to prevent the exportation of hides. Maryland 

 adopted similar measures ; but Beverly, writing a few years later, 

 says of these enterprises that " a few hides were with much ado 

 tanned and made into servants' shoes, but at so careless a rate 

 that planters don't care to try them if they can get others." 



Fortunately, the industry fared better in its first planting in 

 New England, and Higginson probably struck the secret of this 

 good fortune when, in 1630, he called attention to the extraordi- 

 nary increase of cattle in Massachusetts, and the " store of sumacke 

 trees, good for dyeing and tanning leather." Cattle continued to 

 multiply rapidly from 1630 to 1(350, but the prices placed upon 

 them were so high that few were slaughtered. But in the latter 

 year the cessation of immigration from Europe caused a depres- 

 sion in the cattle market, and they began to be killed freely, thus 

 supplying the tanners with the necessary hides. The Massa- 

 chusetts General Court, in 1640, recognized the importance of the 

 industry, and passed a law punishing those who slaughtered cat- 

 tle and neglected to save the hides and have them tanned. But 

 Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island thought that they 

 must take a stronger hand in the pushing of this industry those 

 were in truth the days of infant industries, and of detailed trade 

 regulations and so special laws were passed for that purpose. 

 Protection, in the current political sense of the word, was not 

 known then, but the same ends were attained through the guild 

 privileges. The general law of Massachusetts, passed in 1642, is 

 typical of these regulations. This declared that no leather over- 

 limed or insufficiently tanned, or not thoroughly dried after tan- 

 ning, should be exposed for sale. Tanners putting leather into 

 hot or warm " moors," where the leather should heat and burn, 

 were to forfeit twenty pounds for each offense. Curriers were 

 not to dress any leather imperfectly tanned or dried, nor use " any 

 deceitful or subtle mixture, thing, way or means to corrupt or 

 hurt the leather, nor curry any sole leather with anything but 

 with good, hard tallow, nor with less than the leather would re- 

 ceive ; nor dress or curry any upper leather but with good and 

 sufficient stuff, not salt, and should thoroughly liquor it until it 

 would receive no more ; they were not to burn or scald any leather 

 in the currying, on forfeiture for every one marred by unworkman- 

 like handling, to be judged by the oath of sufficient witnesses." 



This law, probably, was of little value to the industry, as some 

 years later it was repealed, and all efforts to enact similar meas- 

 ures proved fruitless. It throws an interesting light, however, 

 upon some of the methods and practices then in vogue, as it was 



