SECTION VIII. UPPER LEATHERS 



THE manufacture of leather for the uppers of boots and 

 shoes embraces a bewildering variety of goods, suitable for 

 anything between a baby's shoe and a man's shooting boot. 

 Almost all degrees of lightness, softness, and water proof ness 

 are in demand. A great variety of finish is also involved, 

 determined by the ingenuity of the currier and the ever- 

 changing fancy of the public. Even greater is the variety of 

 methods by which all these results are obtained by methods 

 which superficially seem quite different ; the desired 

 qualities being imparted in one case largely by the tannage 

 and in another case almost entirely by the currying. Under 

 such circumstances the selection of types becomes a 

 problem. 



The variety, moreover, commences from the earliest 

 stages, the selection of the raw material. Upper leather 

 may be made from light calfskins, heavy calfskins, kips 

 (home and foreign) , light dressing hides and heavy dressing 

 hides, which last may replace any of the former after 

 splitting to the required substance. In this section it will 

 be necessary to take kips as typical of the rest, and to use 

 it in a rather broad sense, including heavy calf and light 

 dressing hides. 



Speaking quite generally, kips for upper leather receive 

 usually a long and mellow liming, a thorough bating and a 

 sweet and very mellow tannage in weak liquors. In curry- 

 ing they are well scoured and set out, heavily stuffed and 

 stained black, being sometimes finished on the grain and 

 sometimes on the flesh. These outstanding features of 

 upper-leather methods will be further illustrated by a brief 



