336 
“In 1820, when this importation commenced, manufacturing was at its lowest 
ebb, the value of its annual product having been reduced to $4,413,068, by 
excessive importations after the close of the war of 1812, from $25,608,788 in 
1810, just as foreign traders, aided by American importers, at the close of the 
late war, and the fall of gold, have seriously impaired both the wool growing 
and wool manufacturing interests by flooding the country with a vast surplus of 
foreign woollens. While suffering a series of fluctuations, caused by more or 
less successful efforts to break down the barriers to over-importation, the progress 
of manufacturing has been gradual and comparatively regular. In 1830 the 
product of woollen manufactures had increased to $14,528,166; in 1840 it was 
$20,696,999; in 1850, $43,207,545; in 1860, $68,865,963; in 1864 a return 
of manufacturers, representing about three-fourths of the total number of sets of 
machinery, made an aggregate of $120,000,000. 
“With the inerease of the manufacture of wool, step by step, advanced the 
production of wool. ‘The census of 1850 made the clip of that year 52,516,959 
pounds; that of 1860 returned 60,511,343. The yield of 1864 was estimated 
at 95,000,000; that of 1866, 115,000,000. 'The increase of manufacturing and 
the relative consumption of wool at different periods may be gathered from the 
following statement, with the qualification that the wool importation of 1865 was 
less than the consumption of foreign wool for that year, while that of 1866-was 
far more than that year’s consumption. ‘There was also, in round numbers, four 
millions of pounds of shoddy in the former, and seven millions in the latter year, 
not counted in the statement : 
1840. 1850. 1860. 1865. 1866. 
United States products. Ibs. .| 35,802,114] 52,516,969] 60,511,343] 105,000,000} 115,000,000 
Imports ......-. .--. ---Ibs..| 15,006,410] 18,669,794} 34,586,657| 40,372,075| 67,917,031 
ROM ose awa e eee seee. 50,808,524| 71,186,763) 95,098,000} 145,572,075) 182,917,031 
“Tt is not that woollen importations are so much heavier than formerly, in 
proportion to population. As shown above, the average for forty years, when 
we manufactured comparatively little, was $15,680,618. With population 
doubled and foreigu prices at least fifty per cent. greater than twenty-five years 
ago, $45,000,000 would not be a larger proportionate importation, Then we 
manufactured scarcely half the annual consumption; now we manufacture three- 
fourths, and of most goods ean easily manufacture for the entire demand, so 
that any importation tends to drug the market. This is the literal fact, and the 
future will show how sensitive a full market is to the slightest surplus—just as a 
few drops will overflow a brimming glass. All the woollens imported in four 
years of war amounted to but $87,782,918, or $21,945,726 annually ; actually 
a less quantity of goods than was bought for $15,680,618 annually for forty 
years, commencing in 1821; but in the mean time the products of our mills had 
grown from four millions of dollars in 1820, to one hundred and fifty or sixty 
millions in 1864!” 
