There are few things more diffi cult to make than saws, and they have been the subject of study of some of the most talented and ingenious manufacturers of the country. They were manufactured as far back as 1806 in Philadelphia, though in a very small way. In 1820 a factory was established in Bristol, Conn., by Irenus and Rollin Atkins, Rollin Atkins being the father of E C. Atkins, the founder of E. C. Atkins & Company, of Indianapolis, who now have one of the largest saw plants of the world. It was necessary to import the first saw makers from England.
In 1840 Henry Disston, an Englishman by birth, really made the great beginning of the saw-making industry in Philadelphia, and soon produced saws that had no equal in the world. It was only a short time before the Disston saws drove out the English brand entirely from this country, and to-day this firm have not only achieved a world-wide reputation for merit but send their products all over the globe. The annual output of all saws amounts to be tween $10,000,000 and $12,000,000, and there is about that amount of capital invested in the business. The tonnage of steel used in the manufacture of saws varies from 15,000 to 20,000 tons per annum.
American saws, particularly hand saws, are pre-eminent in America and have no equal abroad. Outside of the Disston factory there are several very large and prominent makers, among them E. C. Atkins & Company of In dianapolis, Ind., and the Simonds Manufactur ing Company, who make their headquarters at Fitchburg, Mass. The saw business has been notable because of the genius shown by the manufacturers, and in this respect Henry Disston is pre-eminent. There are probably something like between 5,000 and 6,000 people employed permanently in the business. See SAWS AND SAWING.
Axes have always been among the most important items in the hardware business because of the great need of them in felling the forests with which the country was covered in the early days. They are of innumerable sizes and shapes to suit the needs of the lumbermen and the users. The production has not in creased of late years, due not only to the de forestation of the country, but also to the fact that the place of axes is being largely taken by cross-cut saws. The annual output is some where between 350,000 and 400,000 dozen. As in other lines of business, there have been great consolidations, so that a few large concerns have taken the place of innumerable small ones. The use of natural gas has had a most important effect on the manufacture of axes, since with it a very much superior tool can be made, and it is also of great advantage in tempering. It is noticed in regard to the mat ter of tempering— a thing of vital necessity in all edge tools — that practically there has been no improvement in this regard for several cen turies. Not alone did many of the implements
of the ancients equal in temper the best that can be produced now-a-days, but in many cases they were much superior. The difficulty seems to lie in the fact that tempering is purely a thing of experiment and not of scientific de velopment, the reason for it not being known, nor why some metals can be tempered and others cannot. In the beginning axes were originally made by hand as were all the other hardware implements, but later the tendency developed to establish small factories on avail able water powers throughout the country, as at Pittsburgh, Pa., Lewistown, Pa., East Doug las, Mass., and Collinsville, Conn. With the enormous demand for the goods, this industry soon outgrew its *leading strings* and estab lished itself at more available locations.
Edge Tools— The item of edge tools is a very large one, and, next to builders' hardware, probably the most important in the whole range of hardware proper. It embraces practically everything with a cutting edge such as hatchets, chisels, drawing knives, planes and the like, and space forbids any attempt at more than gener alities. It is interesting to note that on such small items as chisels, drawing-knives, adzes and hatchets, the advance within a period of 1,000 years has been rather in attractiveness of form and appearance than in actual adaptability or merit. Some tools dug up from the Roman camp of Salzburg are, so far as adaptability goes, quite equal to any that are made up now a-days. The simplicity of the articles mentioned has largely rendered them incapable of any great improvement. In the more complicated lines such as planes and the like there have been very great changes and improvements, and the plane industry,particularly, is one of enormous proportions. The manufacturers who have at tained a reputation in edge tools have done so purely on the score of merit and because of the fact that each manufacturer made only one particular line, no one thus having a complete line of edge tools of uniform excellence, design and efficiency; and one of the great causes of the demand for American hardware abroad— particularly since the Spanish War — has been the fact of the assembling of a complete line of high grade tools under one brand, so that the foreigner realized that anything ;hat bore that particular trade-mark could be depended upon as being uniform in quality and efficiency. Among the somewhat lesser items in the tool line have been the interesting developments in auger bits of innumerable designs and patterns, with varying adaptability for different kinds of work. See Toots.