178 



CURRYING SHOP. 



Here I would earnestly impress upon your minds the necessity there 

 is, first, for careful shaving, or skiving, more especially for calf-skins ; 

 let the shoulders and shanks be left, full; take nothing off more than 

 you can take off with the back of the knife ; so that there may be some- 

 thing left for the stuffing, without having the thin place disfigured by 

 patches of oily supersaturation ; be careful, also, not to dry them in 

 the sun ! I had forgotten to mention the scouring. Let everything 

 be well scoured in water at about ninety degrees F., if you want 

 weight, color and surface ; do not grudge the labor of scouring upon 

 both flesh and grain, and if any difference, let the flesh have the most 

 of it. And now I must say a few words about the stuffing ingredi- 

 ents. I am afraid that I have already taken more than the time al- 

 lotted for the lecture, and have thus suppressed some portion of it; 

 nevertheless. I would state that we should endeavor to have the hide 

 when converted into leather, as tough, as soft and as fine as it was 

 before we deprived it of its fatty matter in order to render it leather. 

 We must learn how to put back all the elements we deprived it of. 

 Oil and tallow will not do this ! The softness acquired in leather by 

 saturation with stuffing is similar to the lubrication of the hinges of 

 a door it softens it and causes rough parts of the fibre to slip ; it in 

 fact lubricates it; but when it has evaporated, it leaves the hide as 

 hard and as brittle as it was before it was stuffed at all. 



In conclusion, gentlemen, I would say something about extracts 

 and tanning materials, only that I am interested in the manufacture of 

 extracts. Yet if there is any one here who feels interested in the 

 same branch of industry, I shall be very happy to speak with him 

 about it when the lecture is over. We have all the materials for man- 

 ufacturing every description of leather as good as it can be made in 

 any country in the world 1^*1 myself will undertake to tan and curry 

 a skin with materials to be found in this country, equal to any goods 

 produced in France. We have sumac, the quercus of every kind, and 

 last, though not least, the Abies Canadensis, the hemlock tree ! With 

 the extract of this and sumach, we can produce leather worthy of the 

 country, and I think that is saying a good deal. I do not want to 

 travel this road alone, and I do not think a more appropriate place 

 than this Salem can be found to commence classes for the study of 

 chemistry in its application to tanning and currying. With this I 

 will conclude, thanking you very much for your kind attention. 



After the close of the lecture, remarks were made by several mem- 

 bers, and a vote of thanks was passed to Mr. Maynard for his inter- 

 esting and instructive lecture. 



