Fields, Factories, and Workshops

Appendix Y : The Domestic Industries in Switzerland
We have most interesting monographs dealing with separate branches of the small industries of Switzerland, but we have not yet such comprehensive statistical data as those which have been mentioned in the text in speaking of Germany and France. It was only in the year 1901 that the first attempt was made to get the exact numbers of work people employed in what the Swiss statisticians describe as Hausindustrie, or "the domestic industries' extension of the factory industries "(der hausindustrielle Anhang der Fabrikindustrie). Up till then these numbers remained "an absolutely unknown quantity." For many it was, therefore, a revelation when a first rough estimate, made by the factory inspectors, gave the figure of 52,291 work people belonging to this category, as against 243,200 persons employed in all the factories, large and small, of the same branches. A few years later, Schuler, in Zeitung für Schweizerische Statistik, 1904 (reprinted since as... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix X : The Small Industries in Germany
The literature of the small industries in Germany being very bulky, the chief works upon this subject may be found, either in full or reviewed, in Schmoller’s Jahrbucher, and in Conrad’s Sammlung national-okonomischer und statistischer Abhandlungen. For a general review of the subject and rich bibliographical indications, Schonberg’s Volkwirthschaftslehre, vol. ii., which contains excellent remarks about the proper domain of small industries (p. 401 seq.) as well as the above-mentioned publication of K. Bucher (Untersuchungen uber dies Lage des Handwerks in Deutschland), will be found most valuable. The work of O. Schwarz, Die Betriebsformen der modernen Grossindustrie (in Zeitschrift fur Staatswissenschaft, vol. xxv., p. 535), is interesting by its analysis of the respective advantages of both the great and the small industries, which brings the author to formulate the following three factors in favor of the... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix W : Results of the Census of the French Industries in 1896
If we consult the results of the census of 1896, that were published in 1901, in the fourth volume of Resultats statistiques du recensement des industries et des professions, preceded by an excellent summary written by M. Lucien March, we find that the general impression about the importance of the small industries in France conveyed in the text is fully confirmed by the numerical data of the census. It is only since 1896, M. March says in a paper read before the Statistical Society of Paris, that a detailed classification of the workshops and factories according to the number of their operatives became possible; Journal de la Societe de Statistique de Paris, June 1901, pp. 189-192, and “Resultats Generaux,” in vol. iv. Of the above-mentioned publication. and he gives us in this paper, in a series of very elaborate tables, a most instructive picture of the present state of industry in France. For the industries pro... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix V : Small Industries at Paris
It would be impossible to enumerate here all the varieties of small industries which are carried on at Paris; nor would such an enumeration be complete because every year new industries are brought into life. I therefore will mention only a few of the most important industries. A great number of them are connected, of course, with ladies’ dress. The confections-that is, the making of various parts of ladies’ dress – occupy no less than 22,000 operatives at Paris, and their production attains £3,000,000 every year, while annual production is valued at £2,400,000. Linen, shoes, gloves, and so on, are as many important branches of the petty trades and the Paris domestic industries, while one-fourth part of the stays which are sewn in France (£500,000 out of £2,000,000) are made in Paris. Engraving, book-binding, and all kinds of fancy stationery, as well as the manufacture of musical and mathematical instruments,... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Appendix U : Petty Trades in the Lyons Region
The neighborhoods of St. Etienne are a great center for all sorts of industries, and among them the petty trades occupy still an important place. Ironworks and coal-mines with their smoking chimney, noisy factories, roads blackened with coal, and a poor vegetation give the country the well-known aspects of a “Black Country.” In certain towns, such as St. Chamond, one finds numbers of big factories in which thousands of women are employed in the fabrication of passementerie. But side by side with the great industry the petty trades also maintain a high development. Thus we have first the fabrication of silk ribbons, in which no less than 50,000 men and women were employed in the year 1885. Only 3,000 or 4,000 looms were located then in the factories; while the remainder- that is, from 1,200 to 1,400 looms- belonged to the workers themselves, both at St. Etienne and in the surrounding country. I am indebted for the following information to M.V. E... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Of Agriculture (continued)
The doctrine of Malthus--Progress in wheat-growing--East Flanders--Channel Islands--Potato crops, past and present --Irrigation--Major Hallet's experiments--Planted wheat. Few books have exercised so pernicious an influence upon the general development of economic thought as Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population exercised for three consecutive generations. It appeared at the right time, like all books which have had any influence at all, and it summed up ideas already current in the minds of the wealth-possessing minority. It was precisely when the ideas of equality and liberty, awakened by the French and American revolutions, were still permeating the minds of the poor, while the richer classes had become tired of their amateur ex... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Fruit Culture in Belgium
It appears from the Annuaire statistique de la belgique that, out of a cultivated area of 6,443,500 acres, the following areas were given in Belgium, at the time of the last census, to fruit-growing, market-gardening, and culture under glass: Orchards, 117,600 acres ; market-gardens, 103,460 acres; vineries, 173 acres (increased since); growing of trees for afforestation, gardens, and orchards, 7,475 acres; potatoes, 456,000 acres. Consequently, Belgium is able to export every year about £250,000 worth more vegetables, and nearly £500,000 worth more fruit, than she imports. As to the vineries, the land of the communes of Hoeylart and Overyssche near Brussels is almost entirely covered with glass, and the exports of homegrown gra... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Irrigated Meadows in Italy
In the Journal de l’Agriculture (2nd Feb., 1889) the following was said about the marcites of Milan:- “On part of these meadows water runs constantly, on others it is left running for ten hours every week. The former give six crops every year; since February, eighty to 100 tons of grass, equivalent to twenty and twenty-five tons of dry hay, being obtained from the hectare (eight to ten tons per acres). Lower down, thirteen tons of dry hay per acre is the regular crop. Taking eighty acres placed in average conditions, they will yield fifty-six tons of green grass per hectare – that is, fourteen tons of dry hay, or the food of three milch cows to the hectare (two and a half acres). The rent of such meadows is from £8 to &... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Brain Work and Manual Work
Divorce between science and handicraft - Technical education-Complete education-The Moscow system: applied at Chicago, Boston, Aberdeen--Concrete teaching-Present waste of time-Science and technics-Advantages which science can derive from a combination of brain work with manual work. In olden times men of science, and especially those who have done most to forward the growth of natural philosophy, did not despise manual work and handicraft. Galileo made his telescopes with his own hands. Newton learned in his boyhood the art of managing tools; he exercised his young mind in contriving most ingenious machines, and when he began his researches in optics he was able himself to grind the lenses for his instruments, and himself to make the well-... (From : Anarchy Archives.)

Culture Under Glass in Holland
Holland in its turn has introduced gardening in hothouses on a great scale. Here is a letter which I received in the summer of 1909 from a friend:- "Here is a picture-postcard which J. (a professor of botany in Belgium) has brought from Holland, and which he asks me to send you. [The postcard represents an immense space covered with frames and glass lights.] Similar establishments cover many square kilometers between Rotterdam and the sea, in the north of Heuve. At the time when J. was there (June 10) they had cucumbers, quite ripe, and melons as big as a head in considerable numbers, extent without heating. The gardeners sow also radishes, carrots, lettuce, under the same glass. The different produce comes one after the other. They also cu... (From : Anarchy Archives.)