4 6 2 * [ ASSEMBL Y 



* I have before me a statistical account of tanneries in the United 

 States, which has been carefully compiled from the returns of the 

 last census, a brief summary of whicli I will here give. In the 

 year 1850, there were GfiiJB tanneries in the Uniled States, 

 of which there were over 1,000 in the State of Pennsylvania, 

 while there were only two in the District of Columbia, one in N. 

 Mexico, four in Florida, eight in Wisconsin, ten in Rhode Island, 

 fourteen in Iowa, fifteen in Louisiana, and sixteen in Delaware. 

 New-York comes nearest to Pennsylvania in numbers, for our 

 State has 942, while Ohio, which has 706, stands next. The ca- 

 pital invested in all the United States' tanneries amounts to $19,- 

 000,000, of which more than one quarter is in New-York. 6,000,- 

 000 of hides, and more than 2,500,000 of skins, besides 0,000,000 

 of sheep and other small skins, are tanned a year. Almost one- 

 third of this business is done by the State of New-York. The 

 value of the raw material per annum is $20,000,000, of which 

 New-York consumes one-tliird. 21,000 hands are employed in 

 the business of tanning, while several lumdred thousand are in- 

 cidentally imployed in cutting timber, drawiug bark, and trans- 

 porting hides to and from the tanneries to the markets. Upwards 

 of six millions of dollars are annually paid for labor to the work- 

 men in the United States' tanneries, and over twelve millions of 

 sides of leather are now tanned in tlie United States every year, 

 w^hose value amounts to about $33,000. 



I have another table, showing the value or price of sole leather 

 every year from 1827, when it brought 17^ cents per pound. In 

 1841, the average price of it throughout the year, in the New- 

 York market, was 13 cents per pound. During this period of 2-1 

 vears, the highest price it has averaged waS in the year 1831, 

 when it brought 19^ cents per pound. It reached its lowest price 

 in 1846, when the average fox twelve months was only 11;] cents. 



