Manufactures of Missouri

Debow's Review

September 1867

There is no branch of general industry to which Missouri has paid less attention than to manufactures. The rare advantages of the State have not been improved. The amount of our domestic products is by no means commensurate with our facilities for manufacture. The last census exhibits a palpable neglect of this department of industry. In 1860, the total value of our national manufactures was $1,900,000,000. The workshops of the country employed 1,400,000 persons, and supported 5,000,000. The sum which Missouri contributed to this enormous aggregate is reproachfully small. In 1860, the total number of manufacturing establishments in the State was 2,800.

Their capital was.................................... $20,500,000

Value of raw material.............................. 24,000,000

Value of annual product........................... 43,500,000

Number of workmen............................... 21,000

Number of. persons dependent upon manufactures..... 62,000

A few comparisons will illustrate the insignificance of our manufactures.

CAPITAL OF MANUFACTORIES IN 1860.

VALUE OF RAW MATERIAL.

VALUE OF PRODUCT.

NUMBER OF WORKMEN.

NUMBER OF PERSONS DEPENDENT UPON MANUFACTURES.

NUMBER OF ESTABLISHMENTS.

* From a pamphlet by Professor Sylvester Waterhouse, on" The Resources of Missouri," from which we shall make up several articles relating to the industrial progress of that growing Commonwealth. We thank the author for a copy of his able report.-EDITOR REVIEW.

From this table it will be observed that Missouri with an area more than seven times that of the Granite State, is still inferior to New Hampshire in manufacturing activity. Our want of energy is conspicuous in the very articles which Missouri is best fitted to produce. The following figures show the value of special products for the year 1860: 

FURNITURE. 

Missouri................$3,700,000 

Massachusetts......... 3,365,000 

New York............. 7,175,000 

AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS

Missouri................ $280,000

Ohio..................$2,690,000

Massachusetts........... 1,740,000

New York............. 3,429,000

PIG, BAR, AND ROLL IRON

Missouri............... $,100,000

Ohio $3,000,000

Massachusetts........... 1,694,000

New York.............":.. 3,600,000

CAST IRON

Missouri............ $1,041,0001

Ohio.................. $1,650,000

Massachusetts........... 1,800,000

New York............... . 8,216,000

MACHINERY

Missouri............. $750,000

Ohio...................$4,855,000

Massachusetts........... 5,131,000

New York............. 10,484,000

SAWED AND PLANED LUMBER

Missouri............... $3,700,000

Ohio................ $5,600,000

Massachusetts............ 2,288,000

New York..............,12,485,000 

FLOUR AND MEAL. 

Missouri............... $8,997,000

Ohio.$27,129,000 

Massachusetts.......... 4,196,000

New York............ 35,000,000

COAL

Missouri.................. $8,200

Ohio.................. $1,539,000

Illinois.................... 964,000

Pennsylvania.......... 2,833,000

LEATHER. 

Missouri................ $368,800

Massachusetts........$10,354,000P

Pennsylvania............ 12,491,000 

New York....... 20,758,000 

BOOTS AND SHOES. 

Missouri................ $868,700 

Massachusetts........$46,440,000 

Pennsylvania........... 8,197,000 

New York............ 10,878,000 

TOTAL PRODUCTS OF INDUSTRY. 

Missouri........... $43,500,000

Massachusetts....... $266,000,000

Pennsylvania........ 285,500,000

New York............. 379,600,000 

PIG AND WROUGHT IRON IN 1865.

Missouri.............. $2,740,800

West Virginia......... $3,379,600

Kentucky............. 3,208,000

Ohio..........20,588,600

In 1865, the value of the cotton manufactures of Massachusetts was nearly $100,000,000. But it may be justly alleged that there is an obvious unfairness in instituting comparisons between young and old States. Consider indulgently the youth and servile impediments of the State, make every allowance which a justice tempered with partiality may require, and then the inference that Missouri has neglected its vast manufacturing facilities is unavoidable. These statistics are adduced not to aggravate past remissness, but to stimulate future effort. An era of greater activity has already begun. In St. Louis, for the year ending October, 1865, the United States Assessor reports an average of ten licenses a day for the opening of new establishments. During the same period, there was an increase of 5 per cent. in the manufacture of clothing, cotton fabrics, boots, shoes, iron and wooden ware. It is obviously unnecessary to enumerate the articles that ought to be manufactured in Missouri. There is scarcely a want or a luxury of human life which this State is not able to satisfy by products of domestic manufacture. Accessible forests of various and valuable lumber cover whole counties, and yet we import annually 150,000,000 feet of lumber, at a cost of $6,000,000. Admirable water power abounds in almost every part of the State, yet we allow the spendthrift streams to squander their energies. The daily flow of Gunther's Spring is 5,000,000 cubic feet of water, and the discharge of Bryce's Spring is more than double that quantity. The water is so warm that it does not freeze. It is copious, un failing, and iceless. Conditions more favorable to the manufacturer can hardly be imagined. This great power which is now running to waste should be set at the earliest moment to the music of machinery. It should be taught to drive the wheels of saw-mills and to whirl the spindles of woolen and cotton mills. No sound reason can be offered why this State should not produce its own textile fabrics. The only cotton mill in St. Louis has met with a success that ought to lead to the erection of other factories. Indian hemp is now assuming a commercial importance among, the great staples of the world. The rapidity with which this commodity has entered into the trade of nations recalls the earlier years and sudden expansion of the cotton traffic. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue, in his last Report, gives the following table of the exports of Indian hemp. The average weight of the bales is 300 pounds.

The importation of jute into the United States is already very large. The extent of our imports is shown in the annexed exhibit:

In 1865, 305,166 bales of jute were imported into the United States. It is important to notice the immediate source of these importation's. 

From India, raw material........ 8,641,200 pounds. 

Great Britain, raw material...... 3,000,000

Great Britain .. manufactured goods.. 24,000,000 

India " ".... 55,908,600 " 

Total.......................... 91,549,800 

The Commissioner very justly thinks that the 24,000,000 pounds of Indian fabrics which are imported from England should be manufactured in this country. The raw material should be brought directly from the land which produces it, and wrought into gunny-bags and burlaps in our own factories. This would not only secure to the United States the profits of manufacture, but cheapen the product and enlarge our trade with India. But perhaps it is possible for us to obviate the necessity of importing jute. It is thought that some of our own lands are suited to the production of Indian hemp. An experiment whose success would increase the agricultural and manufacturing prosperity of the country ought to be subjected to an early and exhaustive trial. It may be found that the lands of Southern Missouri are fit for the growth of this staple. The successful culture of Indian hemp in this State would confer upon St. Louis a new facility for the distribution of the products of the Mississippi Valley. Flour ought to be one of our largest products. Our streams furnish a cheap motive power and the means of transportation. Our brands are the best in the Eastern Markets. Yet, in 1860, the products of our flour mills was less than half the quantity made in Illinois. The annual cost of imported paper is millions of dollars. Paper factories would not only save out citizens this great expense, but convert our refuse cotton, flax, straw and sorghum into sources of wealth. The Spanish atocha or esparto-50,000 tons of which are annually imported into England for the manufacture of paper -would doubtless thrive on the sterile slopes of the Ozark range, and become an important and industrial interest. After the completion of the Pacific Railroad, St. Louis will become an entrepot of the precious metals extracted from the mines of the Rocky mountains. Then, if the interests of the West are consulted, the National Government will establish in this city a branch mint, and individual enterprise will erect factories in which silver and gold will be fashioned into articles of use and ornament. In the manufacture of watches, this country has already declared its independence of Europe, and it is very strange if American ingenuity and taste cannot equal the artistic skill of the Old World in the production of jewelry. The granites of Missouri are coarse and strong. They would make an excellent building material for stores and public edifices, but thus far the quarries have been left almost untouched. Marble has been brought to St. Louis from Vermont, and yet there are in this State numerous beds of compact, fine-grained, and durable marble. The colors are various: white, blue, and yellow marbles are common. Other varieties are clouded, mottled with pink and purple, veined with spar, and capable of high polish. A fine lithographic stone is found in Macon County. A native specimen which is an excellent substitute for the foreign article has recently been exhibited in this city. Bavaria may find a rival in Missouri. If the rest of the quarry proves to be as good as the sample, it will be a valuable element in the resources of the State. Lithographic stone is now selling in this market at from 10 to 30 cents: pound. Large blocks are very expensive. Missouri ought to manufacture her own paints. The material is abundant. Blue, pink, purple, red, yellow and white paints can be made from the mineral which our own soil contains. White lead and the oxyde of zinc can be made in illimitable quantities from our own materials. The supply of ochres, barytes, uranium, manganese, cobalt, red chalk, China clay and terra di siena exceeds any probable demand for the manufacture of paints. Fire-clay, rivaling the best deposits of Europe, is found within four miles of the St. Louis Court House. The bed is fifteen feet thick, and very extensive. An analysis shows the following elements: 

Fire-brick made of this clay is capable of resisting very high temperatures. The excellence of the material recommends it for retorts, alembics, crucibles, and furnaces. The kilns of this manufacture ought to be far more numerous. Formerly, fire-rock was brought from remote States for the bloomaries at Ironton. This fire-rock, imported at a very heavy expense, seldom lasted more than five months. But a few years ago, a geological examination discovered a superior quarry in the immediate vicinity of Ironton. This fire-rock is very refractory, and often resists the heat of the furnaces for 17 months. Missouri is adapted to the manufacture of furniture and agricultural implements. Lumber and transportation are cheap. St. Louis should be the factory and emporium of every kind of wood-work which the house and the farm require. It should manufacture everything from a chair to a piano - from a hand-rake to a patent reaper-from a wagon to a rail car. In 1860, the value of the furniture and agricultural machinery produced in Missouri, Illinois, and New York, was respectively $483,000, $3,425,000, and $'10,600,000. This branch of manufactures, which is destined to be a prominent industry in Missouri, will yet increase the capital of the State by an annual product of millions of dollars.. Adepts consider the plastic clay which is found at Commerce fully equal to that of Devonshire. It is as fine and almost as white as flour. The best potter's clay and kaolin exist in quantities that preclude the idea of exhaustion. All this State needs to become famous for its crockery and queen's ware is skillful labor from the potteries of Europe. The materials and capital for the manufacture of earthenware and porcelain are abundant. Art alone is requisite. Near Ste. Genevieve their is a bank of saccharoidal sand which is twenty feet in height, and miles in extent. The mass is inexhaustible. Two analyses give the following result: Silica................................. 98,81 99,02 Lime................................. 0,92 0,98 The sand is very friable arid nearly as white as snow. It is not oxydized or discolored by heat, and the glass made from it is clear and unstained. One firm in this city has annually exported more than 3,500 tons of this sand to the glass manufactories of Wheeling, Steubenville and Pittsburg. The possible benefit which this industry might confer upon St. Louis may be inferred fromn the statistics of the glass manufactories of Pittsburg. In 1866, in the exclusive manufacture of bottles and window pains, The number of men and boys employed was.. 1,800 ". " tons of silica consumed......... 242,000 amount of annual wages.................. $1,396,500 "value of annual product...................$2,160,000 There are also 19 manufactories of flint glass in which The number of workmen is.................... 2,300 " amount of weekly wages.................. $19,000 value of the factories..................... $1,298,000 number of bushels of coal............... 2,095,800 " worth of yearly product.................. $2,000,000 There are in all 35 glass-works, employing a capital of $6,800,000 A large portion of the silica used in the glass-factories of Pittsburg is carried from Missouri. Instead of incurring the expense of two transportation's and paying to distant establishments the cost of production, our own factories ought to meet all our domestic wants and supply the markets of the West. There have been repeated instances of the importation of lead from New York into Missouri. While the earth beneath our feet is rich with incalculable masses of galena, we satisfy the demands of our internal commerce by importation's from the Atlantic frontier. There is no article made of lead that ought not to be produced in our own factories. It is a reproach to our State that the orders of our lead market should be filled one thousand miles from its own metropolis. The few manufacturers who are converting our native ore into the commodities of commerce are rapidly enriching themselves. Our iron manufactures are altogether inadequate to meet the wants of Missouri. With three mountains of iron in our midst, we import almost all our hardware. Ore yielding 56 per cent. of pure iron can be bought at Pilot Knob for $1.50 per ton. At St. Louis, the price is $3.50 a ton. This ore is carried to Pittsburg, manufactured into nails, reshipped to our market, and sold, exclusive of freight, for $125 a ton. A ton of pig iron is sold to a Boston manufacturer for $65. It is shipped to its destination by way of New Orleans. At the Eastern factory it is wrought into files and then sent back to the starting point. One-half of the material is lost in the process of manufacture, but the half-ton of files costs the St. Louis merchant more than $1,000. St. Louis imports railroad iron from Cambria, Pa. The cost at the works is $85 a ton: the freight to St. Louis is $20 a ton. Hence our merchants are paying more than $100 a ton for railroad iron which home manufactories ought to supply at one-third of this cost. The Union Pacific has already expended $2,200,000 for rails. Two years ago, this Company paid for rails, delivered at their destination, $140 a ton. The present price is $120 a ton. It is estimated that the railroads of Missouri will need, during the year 1867, 50,000 tons of railroad iron. This will cost, at the low average of $100 a ton, $5,000,000. The expenditure of so large a sum in our own foundries would save freight, pay the price of manufacture to our own machinists, foster domestic industries, and invigorate the business activities of the city.' These are only representative facts. Hundreds of such illustrations might be presented. Our iron-mills ought to be equal to our resources. With coal and wood abundant and cheap, with masses of ore which centuries cannot exhaust, St. Louis, or its vicinity, ought to be the great central machine-shop of the West. Our iron-works should rival those of Pittsburg, Birmingham, and Sheffield. The importation of iron manufactures into Missouri should speedily cease. Every kind of tools and machinery, every article of iron or steel, from the hair spring of a watch to the largest engine, from a nail to a 20-inch columbiad, should be fashioned in our own establishments. Sugar, if not a necessity, is one of the prime luxuries of life. The quantity of sugar consumed in the United States in 1865 was about 800,000,000 pounds. New York, whose refineries exceed in capacity of production those of all the rest of the country, compels the other States to pay tribute to her enterprise. But in this branch of manufacture, St. Louis has made creditable progress. Under prudent and sagacious management, the St. Louis Refinery-to whose able President I am indebted for the subsequent facts-has expanded into an establishment whose annual transactions amount to more than $3,000,000. In 1866, it refined 22,000,000 pounds of raw sugar. The cost of the sugar imported into the United States in 1866 was-exclusive of the import of three cents a pound payable in coin —40,000,000 in gold. Missouri will doubtless be able to co-operate with the North West in preventing this large export of treasure. France and Germany manufacture most of the sugar which they use from beets of domestic growth. This sugar enjoys no immunities. It is secured against foreign competition by no protective tariff. It is subjected to the same duties as the product of the tropic cane. And yet it not only sustains itself, but successfully competes with the sugars of Cuba and Java. Of the present crop, 100,000,000 pounds will be exported from France to England. There is no need of going to Havana for our sugar. Our Western prairies can equal the saccharine riches of the Indies. They yield as fruitful crops of the sugar beet as France or Germany. Analyses made at Chicago, and at Washington by the Agricultural Bureau, show that the American beet contains as large a percentage of pure sugar as the European beet. It has also been ascertained that the American beet can, in high latitudes, be preserved through the winter uninjured. A company, with a capital of $160,000 has purchased 2,000 acres of land in Northern Illinois for the purpose of raising beets and manufacturing sugar. The experiment will certainly succeed, if the managers are careful to procure proper machinery, skillful labor and scientific supervision. The quantity of beet sugar which the West is capable of producing may be calculated from the estimated crop of foreign countries in 1865: 

The aggregate.................... 1,265,000,000  is more than one-third of the annual consumption of Europe. In 1866, the sugar crop of France was 540,000,000 pounds. A cultivation of the sugar beet commensurate with the area adapted to its growth would add hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the wealth of the West. In the development of this new growth, Missouri ought actively to participate. The mildness of our climate is the only obstacle to success. The temperature must be sufficiently cold to prevent germination during the winter months. If the beet sprouts, it becomes unfit for the manufacture of sugar. Our low latitude does not preclude the raising of the beet, and if our Winters are unfavorable to its saccharine qualities, the crop can be shipped to manufactories further North. Apparently nothing can prevent the culture of the beet from becoming one of the most profitable resources of Missouri. Beet sugar of domestic manufacture is not subject to any excise. Last year, a company of Germans, in Livingston county, Illinois, engaged in the manufacture of beet sugar. Mr. Bender gives the following results of the experiment. More than 4,000 tons of beets were raised from 400 acres of land. The cost of cultivation was less than $4 a ton. The varieties of beet were the " Imperial" and " White Silesian." The juice contained from 9 to 13. per cent. of sugar. The beets yielded 71 per cent. of superior raw sugar, or 51 per cent. of a quality fully equal to the refined "B" sugar of New York brand. If better processes of manufacture had been used, this crop of beets would have produced 450,000 pounds of refined sugar. The period of granulation varied from 27 to 72 hours. This experiment, conducted under grave difficulties, justifies sanguine hopes of American success in the manufacture of beet sugar. The French, who make $50,000,000 worth of beet sugar annually, claim that the yield of beets is less fluctuating and more profitable than that of sugar cane. Sorghum, too, is rich in saccharine elements. From its easy cultivation and great productiveness, this vegetable may yet become one of our most fruitful sources of domestic sugars. The yield is from 120 to 350 gallons of juice per acre. By the aid of late chemical discoveries, the saccharine matter can now be economically granulated. Sugar and syrup, refined by the Clough process, are destitute of the peculiar acrid taste which distinguishes sorghum. If sugar can be manufactured from this material as cheaply as from cane or beet, then sorghum will at once become one of the heaviest and most valuable staples of the State. The quantity of sorghum which Missouri can produce is almost illimitable. By an improved process of recent discovery, an excellent syrup can be profitably made from corn. A bushel of corn yields three gallons of syrup. The residuum is useful for fodder. If the chemist could only convert starch into sugar, he could transmute our cereals into a wealth surpassing the golden miracles of Midas. Corn would no longer be used for fuel. But sugar can be made from the juice of the cornstalk. There is now a specimen of this kind of sugar in the Laboratory of Washington University. It is not grape but genuine cane sugar. The discoveries of chemistry may yet render this an extensive and lucrative manufacture. But, at present, there is no probability that corn will supplant the cane and beet in the production of sugar. An exclusively agricultural State never reaches the highest material prosperity. The wealth of nations is largely dependent upon variety of industries. A diversity of occupations creates a higher social intelligence, a more rapid interchange of ideas among the members of a community, better markets, a quicker circulation of money, greater economy of materiel, and ampler internal resources. The superintendent of the Cambria Iron Works, at Johnstown, Pa., recently communicated to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue some very significant illustrative statistics. The quantity of food annually consumed by the population de pendent upon the company is, 

Johnstown furnishes a ready market for all kinds of agricultural products. The supply of butter, eggs, fruits and vegetables is not equal to the demand. Large quantities are imported from the neighboring markets. Unimproved land within seven miles of the Cambria furnaces is worth from $150 to $300 per acre. Similar land, lying beyond the influence of the Iron Works, is worth but $20 per acre. The effect of this manufactory upon the value of real estate is perceptible fifty miles. In 1864 and 1865, this estab lishment paid to its workmen $2,995,270. As the earnings of a manual laborer are mostly expended upon the means of living, a large proportion of this great aggregate must have gone into the pockets of the adjacent farmers. This instance may be taken as a general illustration of the influence of any kind of manufactory upon a neighborhood. Real estate and the products of the farm are always lowest where manufactories do not exist. Hence the people of Missouri are buying the manufactures of other States at the highest prices, and paying for them with agricultural productions at the lowest rates. It does not require a very profound study of political economy to ascertain this it is not an enriching process to purchase costly foreign fabrics with cheap domestic harvests. With an abundance of raw material at home, we are paying external manufacturers high prices for their goods and incurring the heavy expense of transportation. St. Louis annually imports from Boston alone about $5,000,000 worth of boots and shoes. Instead of this outlay, other communities ought to be tributary to our own shoe factories. We are now paying out what other States ought to pay in. The great value which industry adds to material is all lost to us. The cost of production impoverishes us in just the proportion in which it enriches others. Different kinds of manufactories utilize the various raw material of the State. At present, only the leading staples can bear the cost of transportation. Many articles of economic value are wasted, simply because there is no home consumption. It does not pay to send them to a remote market-the freight consumes all the profit. Missouri loses millions of dollars every year by this waste of available material. In a community where manufactories are numerous and varied, no commodity is lost. Every kind of raw material which has a commercial value commands its price, and is fabricated into articles for the use of man. A thousand substances which home manufactories could transform into useful products now perish unused and worthless. The gravest arguments of political economy urge Missouri to become a manufacturing State. By the adoption of this policy, we should enhance the value of real estate, raise the price of farm products, furnish employment to thousands of artisans, utilize all our raw material, coin into wealth the labor of production, pay to our own workmen the cost of fabrication, save the expense of transportation from remote manufactories, improve our own markets, secure the golden patronage of neighboring States, enlarge the amount and quicken the activity of capital, increase the operations and profits of agriculture and commerce, diffuse a knowledge of the arts, and promote intercourse, exchange of ideas, and the progress of Missouri to material greatness.