Widnes is one of the principal seats of the alkali and soap manufacture, and has also grease-works for locomotives and waggons, copper works, iron-foundries, oil and paint works and sail-cloth manufactories.
Among other important manufactures are foundry and machine shop products ($6,944,392 in 1905); flour and grist-mill products ($4,428,664); cars and shop construction and repairs by steam railways ($2,502,789); saws; waggons and carriages ($2,049,207); printing and publishing (book and job, $1,572,688; and newspapers and periodicals, $2,715,666); starch; cotton and woollen goods; furniture ($2,528,238); canned goods ($1,693,818); lumber and timber ($1,556,466); structural iron work ($1,541,732); beer ($1,300,764); and planing-mill products, sash, doors and blinds ($1,111,264).
Scare off the birds, harrow up the weeds, cut down all that shades the crop. Ploughs, waggons, threshing-sledges, harrows, baskets, hurdles, winnowing-fans are the farmer's implements.
In 1879, at Kilburn, the competition was of railway waggons to convey perishable goods long distances at low temperatures.
More than one-fourth of the value of its manufactures is in Quaker Oats and other food preparations; among those of less importance are lumber and planing-mill products, foundry and machineshop products, furniture, patent medicines, pumps, carriages and waggons, packed meats and agricultural implements.