ind at any shoe store a comfortable shoe
ready-made. You expect that shoe to come close to your foot, and yet
allow you to move it with perfect freedom. You expect all these good
qualities, and what is more remarkable, it does not seem difficult for
most people to get them. There is an old saying, "To him who wears
shoes, the whole earth is covered with leather"; and although many
different materials have been tried in shoemaking, leather is the only
one that has proved satisfactory, for the sole of the shoe at least.
Of late, however, rubber and rubber combinations and felts and felt
combinations have been used.

Most hides of which soles are made come from the large beef
packing-houses or from South America. Goatskins come from Africa and
India. The greater part of a hide is made up of a sort of gelatine.
This easily spoils, and therefore it has to be "tanned"; that is,
soaked in tannin and water. When a man set out to build a tannery, he
used to go into the woods where he could be sure of enough oak trees
to supply him for many years with the bark from which tannin is made;
but it has been found that the bark of several other kinds of trees,
such as larch, chestnut, spruce, pine, and hemlock, will tan as well
as that of oak. Tannin is now prepared in the forest and brought to
the tanners, who put their tanneries where they please, usually near
some large city. The hides are first soaked in water, and every
particle of flesh is scraped away. They are laid in heaps for a while,
then hung in a warm room till the hair loosens and can be easily
removed, then soaked in tannic extract and water. The tannin unites
with the gelatine; and thus the hide becomes leather. This process
requires several months. Hides are also tanned by the use of
chemicals, in what is called "chrome" tanning. This process requires
only a few hours, but it is expensive.

In earlier times the shoemaker used to go from house to house with his
lapstone, waxed end, awl, and other tools. The farmer provided the
leather, which he had tanned from the hides of his own cattle. Now,
however, manufacturers can buy the soles of one merchant, the heels of
another, the box toe and stiffenings of another, and so on. In the
United States there are many factories which do nothing but cut soles,
or rather stamp them out with dies, a hundred or more in a minute.
These soles and also the less heavy inner soles go through machines
that make all parts of them of a unif