ANNUAL BEPORT. 
39 
from a reasonable outlay of money, in this branch of farming than 
Wisconsin. The principal part of the report of the Fish Commis¬ 
sioners of the state for 1876 may be found in this volume. 
While the manufacturing industry of the state has been some¬ 
what depressed the last year, caused in part by high rates of inter¬ 
est paid for capital, short crops, low prices and a general want of 
confidence in business circles, there is a hopeful sign in the fact 
that manufacturing in the United States is certainly improving. 
Witness the fact that our manufactured goods of various kinds are 
fast taking the place of those formerly imported, and in many cases 
we are competing with manufasturers in their own markets, parties 
•of whom we used to purchase. It is gratifying to know that we 
have exported fifty million dollars worth of home products the last 
year more than we have imported. 
The machinery now used in manfacturing in this country enables 
us to compete with the cheap labor, but hand work of the old world. 
This fact was forcibly illustrated at the centennial exhibition at 
Philadelphia the present year, and the address of the Swiss com¬ 
missioner and member of the international iury on watches, de¬ 
livered at Chaux-de Fonds, Lode and Neuchatel, on his return to 
the old world, applies with equal, if not greater force to many of 
the leading manufacturing industries of our country. His remarks 
produced a profound impression in Switzerland, and will be read 
with much interest in the United States. He said: 
“For a long time America has been the principal market for our 
watches. To-day we must earnestly prepare to struggle with the 
Americans on the fields where hitherto we have been the masters. 
Mr. Dennison, the father of American watchmaking, traveled 
through the canton of Neuchatel, studying our mode of manufac¬ 
turing, seeking to inform himself of everything, and carefully 
noting the weak points in our industry. After his return to the 
United States, in 1854, he founded a factory at Boston — “The 
Boston Watch Company.” The capital, scarcely $100,000, was sub- 
ascribed by capitalists more than by practical businessmen. In the 
beginning, the company turned out only the rough skeleton move¬ 
ment, and attended to the finishing; all other parts, such as trains, 
balances, jewels, etc., were imported from Switzerland. Little by 
