ANNUAL KEPORT—MANUFACTURES. 
45 
estimate. Effort lias been made by me to procure reliable 
statistics of this important branch of industry, for publication, 
but up to the hour of going to press all promises have failed. 
• 
WOOLEN FACTORIES IN WISCONSIN. 
Woolen mills have multiplied until they now number over 
fifty. They are steadily improving also in the quality of 
their work. So true is this last remark that much of the cloth 
and other textile fabrics manufactured by them are coming 
into use where but lately only goods of foreign manufacture 
were worn. Shawls, afghans, &;c., also, of most excellent 
quality, and of beauty unsurpassed by foreign-made articles of 
the same general class, are being made by some of our facto¬ 
ries. The mills at Baraboo and Racine have been’ especially 
successful in this last-named branch of the business. 
The Racine factory finds a steady demand, from a single 
house in Chicago, for all the shawls it can manufacture. They 
are fine in quality, of Turkish pattern, and unsurpassed for 
the beauty and richness of their coloring. Other factories may 
be engaged in this particular branch, but I have no absolute 
knowledge of the fact. 
It is claimed by merchants who deal in goods of foreign 
manufacture, that the colors in home-made goods are not fast 
—a charge too well substantiated, I am sorry to say, in 
many cases, by the experience of tkose whose interest in home 
industry has encouraged them to put them on actual trial. 
Whether it be true of them in general I will not assume to say. 
But this I will say : Wisconsin manufacturers will find, in the 
end, that pains-taking in all matters pertaining to their busi¬ 
ness will alone enable them to establish themselves thoroughly 
in the confidence of the public. If they do not understand the 
art of dyeing, let them import dyers from the Old World. 
The following list, kindly furnished by Mr. James W. Hutch¬ 
inson, of Appleton, secretary of the Wisconsin Woolen Manu¬ 
facturers’ Association, contains the names and location of a large 
majority of them. The names of the remainder have not yet 
been furnished: 
