96 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



must control many lines of business. There are some lines of manufact- 

 ure in which this State will probably never be eminent and the limitations 

 of our growth should be clearly understood. 



It has been a slow process to bring manufactures to the west. The 

 center of population is now in the middle of Indiana while the center of 

 manufacture is east of it in the middle of Ohio. Throughout our history 

 as a nation manufactures have been highly specialized and concentrated 

 regionally. Thus we distinguish the manufacture of boots and shoes 

 around Boston, of textiles in the Blackstone valley, of silk at Paterson 

 and New York, of brass ware and cutlery in Connecticut, of iron and 

 steel in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio, of carpets at Philadelphia 

 and Yonkers, and of canned goods at Baltimore. This State holds a 

 very creditable position in manufacture. There are in addition to the 

 State's saw mills, flour mills and planing mills, its prominence in beet 

 sugar, stoves, agricultural implements, prepared foods, salt, gypsum, 

 cement, paint, varnish, wooden ware, furniture aud cabinet-makers goods. 



In addition to the prominence of these interests there is another char- 

 acteristic of the industries of the State to which I wish to call attention. 

 It is that the State is quite marked for the number of small manufacturing 

 establishments to be found in its small and middle sized cities. This is a 

 most valuable tendency in the State's industrial growth and one which 

 it will pay the agricultural interests to favor and promote. While as 

 we have noticed certain families of manufactures are seized and firmly 

 held by definite regions of our country because of raw materials or the 

 necessities of production on a large scale there are other lines qf manu- 

 facture open to the enterprise of almost any normal agricultural region. 

 Such are the manufactures producing goods of which the novelty of 

 design or artistic quality or finish are the principal points of importance — 

 goods in which purity and honesty in both material and manufacture 

 count for much or in which hand work is prized for its own sake. 



We import annually millions of dollars worth of hand-made and shop- 

 made products from Europe to satisfy the taste of our people for hand- 

 made wares which possess value for their style. As our national wealth 

 increases more of these goods will be wanted. Is there any good reason 

 why we should not begin to produce in this country, lace, Hamburg 

 edgings, Plauen goods, carved furniture, bric-a-brac, fine hand-made rugs, 

 gold leaf, cut gems, and inlaid work. While it may not be found profitable 

 to combine agriculture and manufacture as in household manufactures of 

 Europe it would seem as if many sections of our county would be profited 

 by the location of small industries of the class mentioned as well as those 

 which seem as a sort of extension for the raw material industries of the 

 region and which are closely knit to them. 



To make plain my meaning, I would ask why more canneries could 

 not be supported with profit in the State, why from the surplus of our 

 fruit crop jams, sauces, marmalades, candied and evaporated fruit or 

 cider and brandy could not be made. The beet sugar industry is a type 

 of a close union of agriculture and manufacture and its successful develop- 

 ment in the United States will mean the triumph of a sound correlation 

 of businesses. A similar close relation between agriculture and manu- 

 facture exists in the production of cheese. This class of manufactures 

 which lie on the border line of agriculture and within the reach of agri- 



