STRAW MANUFACTURES (ante). From a very early period in the colonial times, the plaiting of straw and its manufacture into suitable goods for domestic use was a common home industry in many New England and other northern households. As these goods were necessarily crude and ungraceful, the wants of the wealthier classes were usually supplied by importation from abroad—principally from Italy. In the early part of this century, however, when the prolonged European wars cut off com municauon with Italy, more attention began to be paid to this branch of industry, and various manufactories were started which supplied a limited and local trade. But it was not until 1825-30 that the business grew to any .real importance or covered any great extent of territory. About that time some of the more enterprising New York and Massachusetts houses sought to develop their facilities so as to reach those portions of the country where straw goods were little known, and the business soon assumed immense proportions. For many years goods were made largely from the straw raised and plaited in this country—the plaiting being done chiefly by females during the intervals of household work—but the cheapness and superiority of foreign braids, in sonic cases, again drove this form of American labor out of the market. The chief domestic braids now left are the " Mackinaw" straw, which is raised and plaited in Can ada and in a few localities in the north-western states, and the palm-leaf, grown in Cuba and split and braided in New England. More than 50 per cent of all the straw goods
manufactured in this country are made from the Canton straw imported from China. The Luton straw from England, and the Leghorn from Italy, are also largely used, and small quantities of other varieties are imported from Switzerland, Bohemia, France, Malaga (Spain), Manila, and Central and South America. The total value of the impor tations is estimated at about $2,000,000 annually. Straw hats and bonnets are sewn chiefly by the Knowlton and Bosworth sewing machines, which are run by steam and which can turn out as many as 100 hats each in a day. These machines are of American invention and their use is gradually extending abroad. The goods are pressed and blocked into shape at the rate of four a minute, by another machine of American origin. The total value of the straw goods manufactured in the United States, was, in 1860, $4,395,616, and in 1870, $7,282,086. The increase in the last ten veers has been even more rapid, but the official figures have not yet been published. More than one-half of the entire amount of American straw goods are manufactured in Massachusetts alone, the census of 1870 valuing the products of that state at $4,869,514, the remainder being divided among the following eight states: Connecticut, $1,026,000; New York, $1,006,000; Pennsylvania, $189,242; California, $60,700; New Jersey, $54,530; Rhode Island, $40,000; Wisconsin, $34,500; Vermont, $1,600.