Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Second part - X. Manufacturing Industries. By Å. G. Ekstrand, Ph. D., Chief Engineer, Control Office of the Department of Finance - 2. Textile and Clothing Industry, by Prof. G. Sellergren, Stockholm - The Wool Industry
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textile and clothing industry.
795
precarious a province, but confine himself to the simpler and cheaper goods
previously known to his customers.
For promoting skill in the textile industry, there are two Weaving: schools,
originally started by private persons, viz., John Lenning’» Weaving School in
Norrköping, and the Borås Technical Weaving School. The former was founded
in 1879, through a donation of 300,000 kronor by a manufacturer, named John
Lenning. This school has a more extensive course for training manufacturers,
foremen, designers, etc., and a- smaller one (chiefly with evening lectures) for
workmen and apprentices in the trade. The weaving school in Borås was originally
a private establishment formed by a teacher of weaving, named S. F. Krebs, but,
at the suggestion of the Board of Borås Technical College, in 1866, passed into
a public institution, and, at the present time, receives a support from the State
of 4,800 kronor per annum and 2,900 from the County council in the Län of
Elfsborg. — Besides these, there is a large number of weaving-schools for
promoting home manufacture scattered all over the country, amongst which may be
especially mentioned the Weaving School of the society »Friends of Handiwork»
in Stockholm, the Tullgarn Weaving School, established and supported by H.R.H.
the Crown Princess, Miss N. v. EngestrOm’s School in Örebro, Johanna Brunsson’s
Practical Art Weaving School in Stockholm, Thora Kulle’s in Lund, etc.
The Wool Industry.
The real improvement in Sweden’s native breed of sheep did not
begin till after 1715, when Jonas Alströmer, rightly called »the father of
Swedish industry», began his experiments in naturalizing foreign breeds
of fine-woolled sheep, particulary that of the Spanish merinos.
These experiments apparently succeeded in the beginning, so that in 1764
there were in Sweden no less than 89,000 sheep of a pure, and 23,000 of a mixed
merino breed. Great efforts were made by the Government to increase the stock
of fine-woolled sheep. Prizes were given for wool, sheep breeding farms were
established, the so-called Wool Discount was introduced for granting loans to
tradesmen in a small way of business at the purchase of native wool, in addition
to which wool-stores and wool-markets were to facilitate its sale. Notwithstanding
all that, this breed of sheep has been more and more decreasing, and at present
hardly numbers 1,000. Several causes have contributed to this circumstance,
especially the difficulty in disposing of native merino wool to the manufacturers, who
preferred the foreign because the former was of very unequal quality. The thorough-breds
imported at different times are also said not always to have been of the best kinds.
Attempts to naturalize fine-woolled Angora goats turned out even a greater failure.
During the whole of this time — the Alströmer period — attention had
been exclusively directed to the production in this country of fine wool or merino
wool; when, however, after nearly a century of incessant attempts to promote the use
of native wool in our manufactories, these had not proved successful, then people
began to see that even the coarser wool might be deserving of attention.
The next phase in the history of our wool production, beginning with the
nineteenth century, thus gave a new impulse to this industry. Instead of, as
before, chiefly regarding the fineness or quality of the wool, stress was now laid
on increasing the quantity of coarse kinds of wool. And these attempts, in spite
of many unfavourable circumstances, have proved profitable. Besides our native
unimproved country sheep — the so-called peasant breed — the wool of which
is uneven and somewhat coarse, chiefly fitted for coarse textures (homespun or
rough clothing), there are at present the following breeds, mostly imported from
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