Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1899-06-21
s5O,OOO,OOO For Cornstalks.

Chicago Times-Herald.
s5O,00O,0OO For Cornstalks.
Steps are being taken to form q
cornstalk combine, with a capital
of $50,0O0,000. It's promters say
that if they are successful in carry
ing out their ideas, 250,0O0,O00
tons of cornstalk that are burned
or left to rot by the farmers of the
United States will prove to be as
valuable as coal, or about $6 per
ton.
w. B. Tate, representing a
syndicate of st Louis, Chicago and
Cleveland capitalists, Is now in
the city, preparing the way for a
meeting of the promoters of the
combine, which ie to be held at
the Waldorf-Astoria on August Is,
when the scheme of financing and
the details of organization will be
perfected. While he was reticent
when seen yesterday, he intimated
that the combine would not have
for its object the sitting of COM
petition, but simply the develop
ment of the cornstlk as a COM
mercial commodity and the Great.
ion of markets for it's several
products.
Mr. Tate has been in communica-
ton i. the last few days witL
several well-known promoters of
this city, and from one of these
the purposes of the new trust,
along with some interesting figures,
were secured.
Over 250,O00,00O tons of corn
stalks are grown in the United
States every year, the acreage
averaging s0,OOO,O0O and the yie7;:
about three tons to the acre. Of
this immense amount, two-thirds
or about 100000 tons, has
heretofore been regarded as sheer
waste and litter, less than one
third of the total weight of the
stalks being serviceable as fodder
for cattle. This waste matter has
been serious trouble to farmers
q long time, not because of az
understood loss of revenue by it,
but simply because of the necessity
of getting rid of it by burning or
otherwise, in order to free the soil
of an encumbrance.
Science has demonstrated now
that this so-called waste has
value all ils own, and reckoned at
its present market price it is now
known that the farmers of the
country he7e been throwing away
or burning up and otherwise
destroying $500, 100000 a year for
two decades at leaat, or $1S,000,-
100000. 1t is 8 safe estimate that
twice that enormous sum has been
allowedlto 20 to waste in cornstalks
in this country alone in the present
Gentry.
A company organized a few years
ago by Mark W. Marsden, of
Philadelphia, which has two
factories, one in Rockford, Ill and
another in Owensboro, KY, has
been successfully manufacturing
six different products from corn
stalks. These are cellulose, which
is used for the lining of battle
ships, serving as an automatic
lax stopper, the glue of which is
well known; a first-class card
board, a splendid paper, an
unequalled foundation for dyna-
mite, patent cattle food and a
glue.
If these products and others that
the oornstalk may in the future
be capable of yielding that the
proposed combine intends to-
handle. Whether or not the
Marsden Company will enter the
combine is not known, but accord
ing to Mr. Tate the success of the
scheme does not depend upon the
securing of the Marsden patents,
he intimating that the promoters
of the. trust control their own
process.
Mr. Marsden has q contract with
the Government for cellulose at
$400 per ton, and it is figured that
he can manufacture one ton of
cellulose from Is tons of stalks,
or $4O0, worth of cellulose from
$50 worth of stalks, not counting
his by-products. Ground corn
stalks, cooked and sweetened with
mclasges and pressed into bricks,
is regarded as one of the most
nutritive cattle foods yet placed on
the market. The paper and
cardboard manufactured from
cornstalks are already recognized
as exceptionally superior articles.
1t is the dust of cellulose that
is used for making powder and
dynamite. By reason of it's powers
of absorption ard retention of
nitro-glycerine, it is declared to
be immensely superior to sea is
land onkfon iuhinh harofnfora ha q