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Show BROOM MAKING. An Industry for the Smal Capitalist. THE BROOM CENTER OF THE COUNTRY. A Trick of the Trade. Growth of a factory. There Is one industry in the country In which the small capitalists have been ; able to hold their own against the wealth- j iest iiu-ii in it. and that la tin, industry of j broom making. It is k business In which a journey man of skill and prudence can hope to establish himself, if he wishes, j within a very few yearn after he hus teamed his trade. The process of broom making is dimple, and yet it is such that, machinery lias never been devised for turning out a completed broom, and, beyond be-yond the hum necessary to erect such an establishment us will permit of a cer-1 cer-1 tain division of the labor, an abundance iof capital is of no special advantage. The broom center of the country Is in ' New York Wale, the largest establishments establish-ments and the best workmen being located in the Mohawk valley. The time was when the Mohawk valley was the great broom corn raising center of the country, too, but the less tough and stringy and more succulent and prolltable cabbage has driven the wavy green tassels of broom corn from the Hats which were once liieir favorite growing place. It was because of the prolific yield of corn there in former years thai the trade of making brooms became so well established. A BROOM FACTO It Y. The growth of a broom factory fa in- : teresting. A young man of economical habits learns tiie trade, ond, having learned it well, iB able to do the equivalent equiva-lent of turning out from Kill to 15 or l.r0 complete brooms a day. As a matter of fact, in well regulated shops no man makes a complete broom, but only one part of it, but the journeyman having learned his trade well can do enough work usually at piece prices to earn from $ '2 to $:t a day. Out of this ho ought to save ffoOO before Blurting In trade tor himself. With this sum he con buy enough machinery ma-chinery (at a cost of JflTiO) and stock to 1 set from three to live men at work and ! keep them going until returns come in from the sales. That Is a very modest capital, but since the ninchinery costs fco little, men have started on Jf'iOO, and even less, and made notable successes as the trade goes. Second hand tools can be had sometimes for $00 or $.H0, u couple of bales of corn would cost perhaps $U5, 500 handles fll.fiO more, and other supplier ?.ri, and then the man l ready to set up . shop and make all tho brooms his neighbors neigh-bors can use, at least. Tho trade in Now York city calls for about 150,000 dozen brooms a year. Tho majority of them are made In Amsterdam and other towns along the Mohawk river. Many come from Jersey, however. The factories are unpretentious wooden buildings. build-ings. Steam power in the larger factories is used in stitching the broom and in winding the wire around the corn where It is secured to the handle. The largest factory in the business, according to a Xew York dealer, turns out 1,000 brooms a day, or twice as many as the New York city trade demands. In such a factory a man's work is equivalent to the making of from 200 to 250 brooms a day, according accord-ing to the quality of the brooms. Of the trade in tiie corn a dealer said: "The manufacturers buy their corn in the west. Kansas corn has the best reputation reputa-tion in this market, but Missouri, No braska and Illinois raise a great deal. The crop was very small in Kansas this year, and IHinoiB did better than any other 6tate. An ordinary crop is tJOO to 400 pounds to ttie acre. If a farmer gels 500 pounds lie pays off some of his mortgage, and when the crop reaches GOO pounds he buys a new silk dress for his wife and a piano for his daughter. And yet there is not such a terrible profit in it. It brings oil the way from $N0 to $100 a ton in New York, the ordinary brooms requiring stock that now sells for from $100 to $120 a , ton. It costs $25 a ton to get it here from i Kansas and $ 15 from Illinois. The mid-1 mid-1 die man out there must have his commJs-1 commJs-1 sion, and so must tljo Npw Vni'K mer? chant. If a farmer receives $20 nn acre for his crop he Is doing well; Btill that is better than wheat at sixty cents a bushel, i BROOM CORN IN BALKS. I "The corn conies to this market In bales averaging 300 pounds each. The corn from the prairies is baled with lath and wire, but some Ohio corn comes here with very liberal chunks of wood to keep tho bales from tumbling to pieces. The wood sells at the same price as the corn, if the buyer doesn't notice it. Sometimes the prairie farmer gets even with the Ohio man by dropping a sod or two into the bunch. "The corn on the average will make 1,000 brooms to the ton, although iq some fancy brands of extra heavy brooms us much as fifty pounds is used for a dozen brooms. In the parlor brooms sold at the groceries two to two and one-quarter pounds are used. There is quite an export trade In broom : corn in ordinary times and in brooms in other times. With low prices on the corn the corn is shipped, but wlren the broom makers have a spurt, as they sometimes do, ond flood the market, no broom trust having yet been formed, brooms ure sold so low as to enable merchants to send them to Cuba and South America. Very little broom corn is ordinarily sent to Kurope. ! the fields of southern France and of ; Italy supplying the European market, j "What :s the trick in this trade, if there be tricks tn ull trades?" was asked of a dealer in broom corn. "It is in making poor corn look liko good. Tho best article has a healthy green color, like well cured timothy hay. That color indicates toughness, with proper flexibility. The cheap stuff, worth $80 a ton, is of a sickly yellv or lemon color. Nothing Is easier than to give to the yellow yel-low corn & bath in a green dye, so as to give it the appearance of first color corn until after iL is sold. Manufacturers who use only the uncolored corn assert that the doctored Bluff lias Paris greeifin it, ond that when tho untidy housewife takes a broom splint to try her cake or pick her teeth, she Is toying with a deadly poison. The men who make tho dye say It is a harmless vegetable compound. People who will use broom corn splints for such purposes may, perhaps, be frightened 1 from an untidy habit by fear of poison, j but no case has yet been recorded where any one was poisoned by a broom splint." New York Sun. |