Letter from Arthur Stayner, 21 September 1893
Salt Lake City, Utah,
President Wilford Woodruff and Counsellors
Dear Brethren
Knowing your active interest in the
temporal advancement of this people, your anxiety to
furnish them employment and your advocacy of
the true Statesmanship involved in making them,
as nearly as possible, self sustaining, I make bold
to invite your attention to a matter of considerable
importance in the line of Industries, which is proving
itself entirely practicable and can be made profitable, and
which involves the employment of 1000 hands and
would save the outgo of from a half million to a mil-
lion dollars a year.
The history of the proposition is this: About two years
ago I read in an English paper of a root called
"Canaigre" growing wild in Southern Utah, Arizona and
New Mexico, containing a large percent of Tannic Acid, sam-
ples of which had been sent to some European tanners for
experiment; I did nothing about it at that time, but
lately, since I heard that the ZCMI Tannery had been
closed down, I took the matter up and procured a
small quantity of the roots and have had some tests
made which have proved very satisfactory.
