at Baltimore has grown rapidly as a manufacturing city
since 1880 is seen from the fact that in that year there were but 3683
manufacturing establishments, with a total annual product valued at
$78,417,304, as compared with 6359 establishments (of which 2274 were under
the factory system) in 1900 producing commodities valued at $161,249,240
($135,107,626 under the factory system); in 1905 there were 2163
establishments under the factory system with a total annual product valued
at $151,546,580, an increase of 12.2% in the five years. The city ranked
eighth among the manufacturing centres of the United States, as regards the
value of products, in the three successive censuses of 1880, 1890 and 1900.
In 1905 it was ninth. Baltimore is noted particularly as the most important
centre in the United States of the canning and preserving industry. The
output in 1905 ($5,981,541) of the city's establishments for the canning
and preserving of fruits and vegetables was 7.7% of that of the whole
United States; in 1900 it had been 15% of the country's total. What seems
to have been the first oyster-canning establishment in America was built in
Baltimore (by a Thomas Kensett) in 1820, and oyster-canning as a distinct
industry on a permanent footing was begun here in 1850. The term "cove
oysters," now applied to canned oysters everywhere, was originally applied
to the oysters found in the coves on the W. side of the Chesapeake Bay,
above the mouth of the Potomac. Up to 1900, after which year oyster
canneries began to be built in the southern states, especially in
Mississippi, Baltimore was the centre of the oyster-canning industry.
Baltimore is also a well-known centre for the manufacture of clothing, in
which in 1905 ($22,684,656) it ranked fourth among the cities of the United
States; for cigar and cigarette-making (1905, $4,360,366); for the
manufacture of foundry and machine shop products (1905, $6,572,925), of
tinware (1905, $5,705,980), of shirts (1905, $5,710,783), of cotton-duck
(the output of sail-duck being about three-fourths of the total for the
United States), bricks (about 150,000,000 annually), and fertilizers; it
also manufactures furniture, malt liquors, and confectionery, and many
other commodities in smaller amounts. The markets, especially the Lexington
market, are noted for the abundance and great variety of their produce. The
proximity of coal-mines, the abundance and variety of food supplies
furnished by the state,