MANUFACTURES, 279 
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the preference given to cotton, and it is now supposed 
to be in a reduced state from that above stated.* 
The principal produce of Droitwich is salt, of which 
more particulars are given in the next article. 
On the Stour, and its collateral streams, are a num¬ 
ber of very considerable iron works, where pig iron 
from Staffordshire and Shropshire founderies, and else¬ 
where, is rendered malleable, and worked into bars, 
rods, sheet iron, and various manufacturing purposes. 
Mr. Darke states, tnat in Bredon, are about from 
sixty to eighty stocking frames, which employ about 
one hundred persons dependant on that manufacture 
in Tewkesbury i this, he says, certainly increases the 
poor’s rates, which I balance by our having an excel¬ 
lent market at Tewkesbury, both for large and small 
productions; this manufactory is in high credit, and 
their trade good. 
By the returns upon the population act, it appears 
that more than three-sevenths of the working popula¬ 
tion ot this county, are employed in trade, and less 
than four sevenths in agriculture ; consequently, the 
* The above was the state of the manufactures of Kidderminster 
at the time referred to, but I am informed in December, 1807, by a 
respectable manufacturer of the town, that the 1700 silk and worsted 
looms, eacli employing one weaver, are now decreased to 700; but, 
that the 250 carpet looms, eacli employing a man and a boy, are 
increased to near 1000; and that the carpet trade is much ad* 
vanced, and with it the general opulence and commerce of the 
town, as well as its population.-—See Sect. vxii. of this Chapter. 
The advance of the carpet trade has been much greater than the 
diminution of stuffs, which has shewn itself in the annnal erec¬ 
tion of extensive buildings of late years, for workshops and ware¬ 
houses, as well as some pretty extensive villas for the master manu¬ 
facturers pear the town. 
consumption 
