Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-07-18
WHICH WILL PAY BEST ?
What the South May Manufacture Profit
ably-Some Hints for Texas.
Many Enterprises Open to the Inyes tment Of
Money in This State-Chance for Small
and Large Capital.


answers numerous letters of inquiry as
what manufacturing enterprise will pay
best in this way: The question, 90 Which
will pay best?'' taken in its broadcast
sense, admits of a satisfactory answer,
which is that those things which are
quickly consumed, and for which there is
an unlimited demand and that require
but small capital to undertake are the
safest for Inexperienced people. Just as
cotton, wheat, rice, corn and other sta
pies of agriculture are always saleabls at
some price, so also are shoes, brooms
hoops, soap, pickles, preserves, dried
and evaporated fruits, pure cider vine
gar, blackberry wine, cheap wrapping
paper, Irvine and scores of other things,
few of which require much money at the
start, but all of which can be commenced
in small way, and by industry and
economy can be increased into large and
profitable enterprises.
Our compilation of new undertakings
for the second quarter of this year, pub
liShed June %, shows that in the four
teen Southern states named there were
quite q number of beginnings made in
enterprises of the kind recommended,
and the reports of like periods for the
past five years show about the same pro-
portion. This list includes one pickle,
one preserve, two bung, five shoe. eleven
broom, two hoop, one shoestring and two
soap factories. There are reported also
many canning establishments, three tan
neries, one paper mill and one axe fac
tory, but the first are increasing quite
fast enough, and the last three require
more capital ana experience than the
majority of our applicants for advice can
command. Take the eight that require
little capital to start, as Illustrations of
many others that might be named, and
see what can be said to recOmm mend them.
There is always market for pickles
and tomato catsup, for preserves, for
jams and jellies, for fruit vinegar and
TOR blackberry wine, and there are few.
localities in the South where, after the
first flush of market prices has passed,
the, fruits and vegetables needed cannot
be haG in any quantity required at much
less money than Northern manufacturers
are compelled to pay. Wages are also
much in favor of the Southern producer,
as are also the cost of lumber for boxes
and for buildingsN and Tor living ex-
penses. These items viii much more
than Offset any that are-.in favor Of
Northern competitors.
Bung and hoop factories will never glut
the market with their products. The
machinery required for either industry
can be obtained with the buildings and
power required for few thousand dol
lars. They must be located where
there is abundance of material
and water or rail transportation
close at hand In these two in
dustres there is no waste of stock and no
changes of fashion. While the world en-
dures bungs and hoops will be wanted in
annually increasing quantities. Broom
factories can only flourish where broom
corn does.
In nearly every place where they have
been started in the United States the far
mers had to be induced to raise that crop
by a pledge from manufacturers that
they would pay a stated price for the
entire product. After one or two seasons
the farmers needed no urging and abund-
ant supplies were assured. The plant for
broom factory requires but little money;
capital is needed principally to pay for
stock and labor. We have often won
dered why soap making has not been
made an important Southern industry.
Nothing is used more generally or con-
sumed more rapidly. In slavery
days when there was a leach,
cry on teverY plantation, laundry
soap was domestic production. Now
the stores carry large stocks obtained
from Chicago, New York and other
Northern cities. The South, served as
rule by wasteful negro laundresses, is j.
paying heavy tribute to Northern man.
ufacturers, while furnishing them the
rosin and cotton seed oil of which they
make large use. We have seen boxes of
cheap soap containing large percentage
of rOsin heaped up in wholesale stores in
the Southern commercial centers, when
we could not find a single bar made be-
low the Ohio and Potomac rivers. Soap
making, both for the laundry and the
toilet, can be and ought to be a
great Southern industry. While in
Chicago several years ago, we were Wis
iting an extensive job printing house.
There we saw two dray loads of labels
sent to a soap maker. On inquiry we
learned that the average monthly bill for
labels paid that printing house by this
one concern exceeded fifteen hundred
dollars This led to visit to the soap fac
tory, where we found that they consumed
from twelve to fifteen thousand barrels
of rosin annually. Thus North Carolina
and Georgia turpentine distillers are.
supplying, at infnitesimal profit TO
themselves, material that, after hav-
ing added to it commissions, wharf
ages and freights to Chicago, comes
back in soap, to which the makers
profits, the freight charges and the job
bers' and retail merchants profits are
added, and Southern consumers pay all
these unnecessary bills. Surely soap
factories viii pay, and yet in fourteen
states, in the last three months, but
two new ones have been started.
Where is all the starch used in South
ern laundTies made? Go where you will
and you will find meme but Northern
makers names on the packages in the
grocery stores. And yet, if chemists tell
the truth, the sweet potato viii yield as
large a percentage of starch as corn,
and the yield of Carolina and Georgia
fields often average several hundred
bushels to the acre.