The Americans are rapidly securing to themselves a superiority over all other nations in this important manufacturing interest, and in a few years boots and shoes of American manufacture will be regarded as the _ne plus ultra_ of the art. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. IMPORTANCE OF THE BOOT AND SHOE TRADE. The great importance of the Boot and Shoe Trade in the New England and Middle States, and the vast amount of capital devoted to its development, the energy, brains, and perseverance of its leading men, place this branch of the mechanic arts high on the list of the great industrial interests of the age. It is, therefore, a matter of surprise, that some work has not appeared which should contain important scientific, statistical, and practical information concerning the rise and progress of the Shoe and Leather interests. Works upon Tanning have been published, covering many of the collateral branches of that science, and fugitive articles occasionally appear, giving accounts of new discoveries, or new applications of old methods, concerning the preparation of leather, &c.; but in the manufacture of boots and shoes, no work has ever appeared which would enable the shoemaker to make any advancement in his calling, other than that which his own observation or genius might suggest. The Boston Board of Trade publish annual Reports in which appear able articles upon the Shoe and Leather interests, but these, of course, are mainly statistical and financial in their character. There is published, also, in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, simultaneously, the _Shoe and Leather Reporter_, by J. D. Field & Co., a valuable journal, devoted exclusively to the trade in boots and shoes, leather, hides and its collateral branches, also market reports and correspondence from various portions of the world. This paper is the only organ, we believe, devoted exclusively to the shoe and leather interests. Systems of measurement, the cutting of patterns, preparation of stock, all of which can be gained by study and application, have been, as it were, sealed from the direct investigation of the inquiring mind. In other branches of the mechanic arts, volumes have been published, and the ambitious student pursues his investigations from primary principles to ultimate results in regular gradations. In the science of shoe manufacture, we must refer for information principally to English works; and even these are collateral, rather than direct, in their application. Dodd’s British Manufactories, Brande’s Encyclopedia, Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, Penny Cyclopedia, Results of the Late Exhibition, (London,)—all these are the repositories of much that has been written upon the leather interests; sources of information which none but the man of leisure, or the enterprising compiler, would be likely to trace out.