BOOTS AND SHOES.

Prior to 1864 there were no extensive factories for making these articles in the State, the business being confined to a few small shops doing custom work.

George K. Porter, of Santa Cruz, for many years engaged in carrying on a tannery at Soquel, in that county, was the pioneer in the business, having hired from the State forty or fifty convicts for working up the products of his tannery into the coarser kinds of boots and shoes.

All the larger establishments of this class in the State are located in or near the city of San Francisco, the leading one being the Pacifie Boot and Shoe Factory, near the Mission Dolores, founded in 1866. The main building is forty by eighty feet, three and a half stories high, with a tannery attached, where all the leather worked up is made. The entire number of hands employed is one hundred and thirty. Steam power is used, and all the latest and most approved styles of machinery have been introduced.

At the factory of Wentworth, Hobart & Co., situated within the city, nearly every variety of goods is manufactured; over 11,000 pairs of boots and shoes, and about 5,000 sides of sole and upper leather being worked up monthly. Hein & Bray employ seventy-five men, and turn out daily 78 pairs of kip and calf boots of very superior stock and workmanship. Buckingham & Hecht also carry on an extensive business in this line, the wares produced by this house being of marked excellence. A company of capitalists having recently purchased a tract of land near Clinton, Alameda county, are now erecting thereon a large factory with houses for workmen. The place is to be named Lynn, after the famous cordwainer's city in Massachusetts.

Notwithstanding the large quantities of boots and shoes manufactured in the State, the importations of these articles have thus far continued to increase every year, immense numbers having been sent to this market via Panama to be forced off at auction. The imports for 1865 amounted to 38,875 packages; for 1866, to 47,349; for 1867, to 66,672 packages. Such, however, is the superiority of the California made wares, both on account of the greater excellence of the stock and care in the making up, that they have always commanded from ten to fifteen per cent. higher prices than the imported article; and so great is the consumption of boots and shoes on the coast that the business of their manufacture here is steadily expanding-the value of

the wares turned out at domestic factories in 1867 having been estimated at $550,000.

SADDLERY AND HARNESS.

Both these branches of business, owing to the peculiar requirements of the Pacific coast in this line of wares, have been very extensively prosecuted in California. The superior model of the saddle and other riding equipments found in use here, when the Americans arrived in the country, led to their universal adoption by our people, precluding the importation of other styles almost entirely. So, also, the harness required, being mostly designed for teaming into the mountains, and other heavy service, could be made here to advantage, the leather of domestic tan being furthermore preferable to any elsewhere procurable.

The heaviest manufacturers, and the earliest house to engage in this branch of business in the State, was that of Messrs. Main & Winchester, of San Francisco, who, besides their principal establishment in the city, extended their trade at an early day to many points in the interior; their energy, and the excellence of the articles made, securing to them for a time a large proportion of the trade of the entire coast. They are still largely and actively engaged in the business, the force constantly employed consisting of sixty men in the saddlery and harness department, and twelve in the manufacture of whips; the annual value of the products turned out at their extensive establishment being about $80,000, equivalent to nearly one half the entire productions of the city. There are several other saddle and harness manufactories in the city, nearly every considerable town in the interior of the State also containing one or more.

WAGONS, CARRIAGES, AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS, CARS, ETC.

For several years after the American settlement of California, nearly every description of vehicle, except such wagons as had been brought across the plains, were imported from abroad. For the past eight or ten years, however, the manufacture of carriages of all kinds has been largely carried on all over the State; the greater portion of light vehicles, such as coaches, buggies, express wagons, etc., as well as most of the trucks and drays, being made in San Francisco, where the number of workmen employed in this line amounts to about two hundred and fifty, the value of the productions turned out annually exceeding half a million of dollars.

It happens in regard to certain classes of vehicles, that they can be made to suit the peculiar service for which they are required better here than in other countries, those manufactured in particular parts of the State being also generally preferred in those localities to any others, the makers, from long observation, being better able to adapt them to the special business they are to be employed in. Thus, at Sacramento, Stockton, and Marysville, the best wagons are built for heavy freighting into the mines, while in the mining towns, those best adapted for hauling ores are constructed.

The business is steadily on the increase, and it is not probable that many wagons, except the more costly styles of coaches and buggies, will be imported after a year or two more, nearly every description of vehicle of domestic make being preferred to the foreign, even at a considerable increase of cost.

At present the home made article supplies about ninety per cent. of the entire demand. The manufacture of cars, for railroads and use in the mines, is also fast growing into an important business in this State, all the leading railroad companies having large shops of their own for making and repairing their rolling stock. A great many of these vehicles are also manufactured at private shops in San Francisco. This branch of business, though now considerable, is small compared with what it will probably be in the course of a few years.

In view of the heavy cost attending the importation of such bulky articles as agricultural implements, it would, at first glance, be supposed that all required on this coast would be made here; and such would be the case, were their manufacture not prevented, in most instances, by their being patent inventions. As it is, however, many of the more important and cumbersome are now being constructed here, while a very large proportion of ploughs, and other more simple implements, are made in large numbers, there having been over six thousand of the former manufactured in the State during the past two years. The following list indicates very nearly the number and value of these implements imported into the State during the year 1866, the importations for 1867 having been about the same: 700 ploughs, $91,000; 300 threshers, $180,000; 1,500 mowers, $150,000; 1,000 harrows, $10,000; 500 grain sowers, $15,000; 200 cultivators, $6,000; 200 gang ploughs, $10,000; 100 hay presses, $10,000; 1,000 horse rakes, $15,000; total, $487,000; besides which, great numbers of churns, wheelbarrows, scythes and snaths, and a vast number of other farming and dairy utensils of secondary importance were imported.

What was said in regard to the preference given to California made

wagons and harness applies with equal force to agricultural utensils, many farmers being unwilling to use any other than those made in their own neighborhood-this being more especially true of ploughs. Already a number of our citizens have secured patents for improvements made in this department of invention, the steam plough promising very large gains to the farmer, being the most valuable and noteworthy of these California contributions to practical agriculture. Improvements have also been made here in the gang plough of such value as to warrant their being secured by patent, these implements now being made in various parts of the State.

Threshers, mowers, and reapers, have also been made at several places, all of which have given equal satisfaction with those imported. It is unfortunate that California grows but few woods well adapted to car and carriage making, nearly all the better qualities of hard timber employed for this purpose being brought from the Eastern States.

FURNITURE.

For several years even the most common articles of furniture used in California were brought from beyond the sea; and although much is now made here, the importations of the more costly kinds of cabinet ware still continue to be large. There are several large establishments in San Francisco engaged in making and finishing furniture; the most extensive of which is that of Goodwin & Co., whose principal factory and depot, situated on Pine street, is four stories high besides the basement, and has a frontage of eighty-two feet with a depth of ninetyseven feet. It is not only the largest establishment of the kind on the coast, but is surpassed only by a few in the leading Eastern cities. This firm give employment to one hundred and thirty men, and have a capital invested in their business of over one million dollars. They expend $500,000 annually in the purchase and manufacture of furniture in New York and Boston, their sales in 1867 having amounted to $800,000, a sum which it is expected will be considerably exceeded the following year.

W. G. Weir also manufactures a good deal of furniture, employing at his shops in Hayes Valley over forty men. The value of wares made in 1867 reached $80,000, which the proprietor expects to double in 1868, having lately added much new machinery and otherwise increased the capacity of his shops.

In addition to these, there are several other smaller establishments in the city, the entire number of men steadily engaged in this business

being about three hundred and twenty, and the total annual value of wares made and completed amounting to nearly half a million dollars.

Of the natural woods most used in cabinet work, the principal are Oregon Pine, Spanish Cedar, Redwood, Sugar Pine, White Cedar and California Laurel; this coast not affording any great variety of the finer kinds of wood, the most of which is imported.

MATTING.

The manufacture of Manila matting commenced on a small scale in San Francisco, May, 1866, and since largely extended, has meantime served to greatly check importations, while it has reduced the price of this article from $1.50 to 75 cts. per yard. The imported is subject to a tariff of 30 per cent. ; yet, so greatly superior is the machinery here, and the other facilities for manufacturing, over those enjoyed abroad, that an intrinsically better article is made, at the same time that the price is reduced. The material used, consisting of yarn spun from the outside bark of the cocoanut tree, is brought directly from Manila, the manufactured matting imported coming mostly from China.

PIANOS, ORGANS AND BILLIARD TABLES.

There are but three shops in the State whereat pianos are made, these all being in San Francisco. They employ an average of twenty men, and have facilities of machinery, etc., to make two hundred instruments annually, the actual production being scarcely half that number. Jacob Zech, the pioneer maker on this coast, has taken many premiums at the several State and other leading fairs, over foreign competitors. At these shops all the different kinds of pianos are made, many of the square and upright instruments, with iron frames, having been lately constructed. The woods used are mostly of California growth, and the instruments produced here are said to be equal in tone and workmanship to any made elsewhere, while they stand the climate better. The principal obstacles in the way of the successful manufacture in California are found in the high prices of labor and the limited market.

There is but one manufactory of organs in the State, that of Joseph Mayer, of San Francisco, established in 1860, and whereat there have since been twelve of these instruments made, all of superior tone and power, eight of the number having already been set up in leading churches in San Francisco. Two of these instruments were made in 1867, at a cost of $3,000 each. The material employed is of California production throughout-every part being made on the ground.