This branch of leather manufacture is mainly carried on in Germany, Austria, and France. In Germany and Austria, lamb-skins are principally employed; in France, kid-skins. For fine gloves, the skins of very young animals only can be used. The ordinary style of manufacture is as follows:--The soaking of the dried skins is effected in large wooden tubs (_Kufen_, _Bottichen_), and occupies on the average 3-4 days, according to the character of the soak-water, the size of the skins, and the time they have been stored. The skins, when thoroughly and uniformly softened, are unhaired, either by painting the flesh-side with a thin paste of lime, or in lime-pits. In unhairing by painting (_Schwöden_), the skins, after coating the flesh-side with lime, are folded together, so that the lime comes as little as possible into contact with the wool, and these bundles or "cushions" are placed in a tub, in which they are most frequently covered with water. After unhairing on the beam with a blunt knife, the skins must be limed for some days, in order that the leather may stretch well, a quality which the Germans denominate _Zug_. By this method of unhairing, the wool is preserved uninjured, but it is not suitable for the finer sorts of leather. The unhairing in lime-pits is done either with gas-lime (Grünkalk), or, as is now almost exclusively the practice, with the so-called "poison-limes" (_Giftäscher_). These are prepared by mixing red arsenic (arsenic sulphide) with lime, while it is being slaked, and is at its hottest. The calcic sulphydrate (and perhaps sulpharsenite) thus formed hastens the unhairing, and gives the grain a higher gloss. Well-conducted establishments now avoid as much as possible the use of old limes, which produce a loose, porous leather, with a rough, dull grain. The liming lasts on the average 10 days, and is of the greatest importance. It is essential that the interfibrillary substance shall be dissolved, that the leather may have the quality known as _Stand_, that is to say, may be strongly stretched in either length or breadth without springing back. It also depends upon the liming (and this is of special importance in the case of lamb-skins), whether the tissue of the fat-glands is well loosened, so that the fat, either as such, or as lime- or ammonia-soap, may be readily and completely worked out. Skins in which this is neglected can never be properly dyed. When the hair (or wool) is well loosened, the skins are rinsed in water, and then unhaired on the beam with a blunt knife. The water employed in washing should not be much colder than the limes, or it will prevent the hair from coming away readily. The wool or hair is washed and dried for sale. The skins are thrown into water, to which a little lime-liquor has been added, to prevent precipitation of the lime in the skins by the free carbonic acid of the water, which would have the effect of making them rough-grained.