The National tribune., 1907-10-17

that there are busqs40.a00. 900 on de-
posit in the banks, of the State.
Right now in the United States there
are great fortunes to be made, and
while they do not comes to people who
sit with hands folded, Ithey will come
to the people who go out after them.
I know of one mill in the South that was
installed at a cost of 100000 that is
making $4,000 ailmonth clear profit.
But it is not only in the South this is
true. I have had occasion in the past
year to visit nearly every section of
everywhere. It'shthe greatest country
on earth and the development is only
| just begun. 1 do think, however, that
| if big business men could devote all
their time to business instead of giving
most of it to the public and the rest to
progress more rapidly. The country
has not been so badly pillaged as some
persons imagine"
! The supply of wood pulp will last
for at least another century and hence
there Is no possible danger of a paper
famine,' declared Harry T. Ratcliff, OF
Hamilton. o., traffic manager of one of
the largest paper concerns in the Unit
ed States. He is on his way to James,
| town.
Our company alone owns a tract Of
$4,000 acres near Asheville N c.,
which is covered with a fine spruce for
est, some of the trees being six feet in
diameter" continued Mr. Ratcliff. I'VE
are now buying cur wood in Canada
and Florida while it is cheap enough
to make it advantageous for us to do
so. When the price gets high enough
we Shall use our own forest. This is
true of other concerns that are saving
their timber for future use.
| "All thru the mountaipO,ic districts
| of the South there is more timber than
we know about. Take railroad map
and study it, and you will find that the
roads do not touch the interior noun
| tain sections of North Carolina and
Tennessee. If there is not enough tim
ber there, it will most surely be found
in the Northwest.
| newspapers are not likely to stop
publication because of the lack of pa
per. The better sort of pulp is used
for making book paper and high-class
commercial catalogS. The finest sta
tionery is made out of linen rags. With
so much material at hand l fail to see
any famine for another hundred years.
Should wood pulp give out, however,
corn stalks might take it's place as the
raw material of paper. In fact, l have
heard that the time is coming when
the Department of Agriculture will be
able to raise corn stalks that may i'm
]
Of paper making. The only trouble
with this sort of stuff is that it will not
bleach entirely white; after il becomes
paper it retains stringy appearance.
The firm l am with uses 900 tons
of wood pulp every day, and it is only
a little part of the vast paper industry
thruout the United States. 1t is prob
ably safe to say that there are 500. 900
tons used every day. Whether the tim
Der for this prodigious consumption
lasts q century depends upon whether
the Government permits the forests to
be consumed"
Fifty years ago the United States
Government might have purchased the
home of Observation-Disclosures Mount
Vernon-for a neminai sum. It was
penurious. and wouldn't do it. To-day
it would take a gold mine of superfine-
ness to buy the old place. Yet there
are people who practically demand that
the Government confisrate Mount Yer
non that poor people may be per-
mitted to visit the grand old place with
| out cost. The sentiment is all right
but the sense is all wrong At time
along in the early sos, when the own
er of Mount Vernon wanted to "raise
the wind and offered the place for
sale at a song, woffian came to the
front, and savedst the place from going
under the hammer . to anybody and
everybody. A Mrs. Cunningham was
the woman, and she had not nearly
enough money to buy the place out
right, but she paid a goodiyssum down.
and then proceeded to form an asso-
citation to raise money to complete the
purchase. The war OF the rebellion
| came on, and she died, but the wo-
| men who had helped to buy the place
hung onto it. During the war nothing
at all was done. Contending armies
I plc tod
was ever reported from either North
or South. After the war was over the
association of patriotic women set to
work at Mount Vernon, and concluded
| to restore IT. This work of restoration
has been going on for years. One by
one the old slave quarters, the loom
house, the cook houses, the laundry
the kitchen, the various other little
houses which formed the semicircular
line about the grounds, together with
the interior of the quaint old mansion
house, have been restored until they
stand to-day exactly as they did in the
time of Washington.
Only year or two back it was dis
covered that under the many layers of
paint and kalsomine on the walls
could be traced the decorations and
the very colors in which they were
laid upon the cement-like plaster of
the Ola ulnlnS room and library, the
entrance hall and the reception hall
Immediately all the seven or more lay
ers of stuff were removed from the
walls till the whole of the earlier deco
ration was uncovered With care for
detail the old walls were covered with
paint that copied exactly the shadings
of the old decorations. Revolutionary
furniture has been placed in the old
rooms; many of the Washington dishes
furniture of the Washington family
and pictures and pianos-spinets-tha
belonged to the Washingtons have been
brought to the Mount Vernon house
and the rooms have been restored al
most exactly as they We're in Wash
ingtons time The plans that Wash
ington drew himself with wonderful
minuteness and attention to detail, are
in existence. Following these out, the
ladies who own Mount Vernon have
made it as near replica of what it
was in the day of the first President as
it is possible. Now a lot of different
people are kicking because they have
to pay to see this restoration, which
has cost an incredible sum, and are
wanting Congress to step In and take
the place away from the women. Nay.
nay! That will not do. Findins is
| Ilr