The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1897-09-15


ton to the mind of the capitalist?
We should advise that every local,
ity desiring factories go ahead and
build and operate them.
This need not be such a great un.
dertaking, providing the co-opera
ton Of all the people of community
can be secured. Let us, for instance
consider the matter of broom fac
tory in some section of the State
where the soil is suited to the cultiva-
ton of the corn. AS bearing on this
point of broom corn culture we quote
the following from the Barlow Cour-
ier-Informant:
Many of our we'll informed men think tina
broom corn would be profitable crop to rais'
in this county. Quite a lot of it has beer
grown in the vicinity of Winter Haven, where
we have a broom factory, which after exhaust
ing all the local crops is now importing stool
from St. Louis. 1t is estimated by those in
formed that three tons can be grown to the
acre and that it is worth $50 ton
This subject was up before the Sanford
Board of Trade for discussion last week. arlC
Mr. Pillsbry submitted a sample and argued
that it could be proftably grown a chicken
food He said that another fact in its favor
was that the birds have not touched his broom
corn, though it had been ripening in the form
of side shoots and beated stalks from being
left too thick, for over six weeks. He would
not venture to say they never will, but II
seems strange that while he couldn't keeT
Kaffir corn, guina or chicken corn mllet
from the birds without costipg-in the alb
sence of small boy with gun, and having tc
do the gun act himself-more than it was
worth, to save any he had to go it every
day and cut before its proper maturity. He
emphasized the fact that it was a good stock
feed, and was getting more eggs than before
he began feeding it-and it is not good egg
season either. He stated that he had fed
hundreds of bushels of it to hogs and COWS.
Of course all this quotation does not
bear on the subject of manufacturing
the straw into brooms, but it is good
readable matter. Now, if a cOmmu-
nifty that is crying so loudly for fac
tories will go to work, form stock
company, and build and equip the
factory, and will operate it at profit
for a few years, we think there will
be no trouble in getting capitalists to
invest their money in larger plants.
The expense of equipping broom
factory is trifing-a few hundred dol
lars will do it. Most of the machin-
cry, in fact can be made at home.
There is certainly no sense in waiting
for imported capital to establish a
broom factory, when it can be started
by those who would grow the raw ma
terial, and thus derive a double profit
from the sale of the raw material
and from revenues of the factory.
For years we have heard loud cries
for cassava starch factories from diff
ferent sections of the State-in fact
we know of localities that have wait
ed for ten years for some one to start
a starch factory so that they could
sell them cassava roots-they are still
waiting, and we think the wait will be
a long one.
Now this is poor business. You tell
capitalist that he can make thous-
ands by building starch factory. He
investigates and finds that the fac
tory, on small scale of course, can