THE AMES SHOVELS. 31 



unsurpassed by any similar tools in any part of the world ; 

 while the rapidity with which they can be manufactured, and 

 the consequent cheapness with which they are sold, are among 

 the marvels of modern mechanics. 



The manufacture of these important articles was under- 

 taken, to be sure, even before the Revolution, and as early as 

 1788 the iron-plated shovels made in Bridgewater, Massachu- 

 setts, gained the credit of being superior in workmanship to 

 the best imported shovels of that day, and they undersold 

 them at the sa,fne time. A large shovel- factory was estab- 

 lished at Easton, Massachusetts, about seventy years ago, 

 and as early as 1822 it was making about 30,000 shovels a 

 year. By improvements in the process of manufacture, the 

 patents for which were issued in 1827, the proprietor gained 

 so high a reputation and such an increase of business, that by 

 1835 he was making about forty dozen shovels and spades per 

 day, each shovel, in the systematic division of labor, passing 

 through the hands of no less than twenty different workmen. 

 The same establishment can now produce over two hundred 

 and fifty dozen a day. 



THE WORK CONCENTEATED. 



It may be stated that cast-steel shovels were first patented 

 in 1828, but cast-steel hoes were made by two difierent estab- 

 lishments in Philadelphia as early as 1823. Shovels and hoes 

 were made at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in considerable quanti- 

 ties previous to the year 1803, and by the year 1831 steel 

 hoes were made there so as to be sold at the rate of $4.50 a 

 dozen, only half the price of the iron hoe ten years earlier. 

 Two factories in that city, in 1836, were able to make steel 

 hoes at the rate of 1,600 dozen, besides 8,000 dozen shovels 

 and spades a year, in addition to a large quantity of other tools ; 

 while, in 1857, four large establishments there made 32,000 

 dozen hoes and 11,000 dozen planters' hoes, a half million 

 dollars' worth of axes, and large quantities of picks, mattocks, 

 saws, &c. These facts are alluded to simply to show how 

 this industry has become concentrated in large establishments, 

 where perfection can be attained by the division of labor. 

 There are many similar establishments in various parts of the 

 country. 



