The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1909-07-28
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| mercantile mouse of Sears, Roebuck
& Co. has forty acres of empty
prairie land around its plant, ready
for to-morrow's building.
The United States Steel Corpora
ton owns land at Gary and Buflng'
ton, also seven miles of lake front,
with riparian rights which will per-
NIT of the making of as much land
out in the lake as the company will
ever require. The Corn Products
Company has acquired a whole town
ship and put its factory in the middle
of it. The free land of the Allis-
| Chalmers Company will allow the du-
rlication of its West Allis plant in a
straight line six times over.
Retail stores are looking to the
future, particularly in congested dis
tricts, by providing foundations for
| structures erected capable of sup
porting additional stories as the vol
ume of business demands.
Down to the mirutest detail this
lookout for tomorrow may be car
ried. A company making various
lines of apparatus is overhauling its
catalogue system in such a way that
it will be possible to group kindred
styles of apparatus under simple num-
bers.
The plan has been to number styles
c~onsecutively as they were originated.
Now each type is to have a thousand
numbers-style A will be called 1000.
style B 1000 and so on. Improve
msnts in type A will be numbered
1901, 1902 and so on. Adding to this
the use of the loose leaf in the cata-
logue, the futures orderly expansion
so far as concerns this one little detail
is provided for.
Then there is another kind of to-
morrow policy-the progressive to-
morrow departments, which embrace
those that are studying future de-
mands, altered customs, future mar
kets, future possibilities in the way
of inventions and devices. Farm i'm
plement makers are investing great
sums in experiments so that the bust
ness of their son may be abreast of
demand and of progress.
A large machine making plant
spent a million dollars in n year
in this experimental work. An auto
mobile factory has devoted five years
to experiments on an automobile de-
signed for a particular and local pur-
pose.
One appliance manufacturer &C
tually has in his vaults patents, de-
vices and models which represent
thousands Of dollars invested, but
which guarantee to this company that
it will be ahead of demand for TWEEN
ty years. Ideas not commercially
disable to-day have been acquired for
possible use tomorrow.
Paper manufacturers have their
eyes on the annual fax crop of the
Northwest, where a million tons of
fine fibre stock go to waste every
year. In the South 22,000,000 tons
of cotton stalks are destroyed. An
i~ncalculable supply Of cornstalks is
burned and plowed under. Great
areas of wild hemp and marsh hay
find no commercial uses.
All these products, wasted to-day,
possess ingredients required in paper
making. All of them are to-day un-
der experiment. Tomorrow they
may be commercial actualities. In
chemical plants scientists are being
paid to discern the secrets Of nature.
Artificial rubber is a possibility. A
substitute may be found for cedar in
pencil making.
Reversing the proposition, present
raw materials are Icing made to pro-
duce new products. Had the turpen-
tine been extracted from the yellow
pine that went to waste last year the
gross saving would have been $14,-
100000.
There is no reason why every con-
Germ that possesses raw materials
should not use commercial chemistry
to extract products from substances
heretofore wasted only in parts. AS
important as a right supply of raw
material, men are learning, is a sup
ply of skilled labor. Here Europe far
excels America in foresight. Only a
few Industries and a few concerns
here have given thought to to-mor-
rows supply.
The movement has begun. The
Winona Technical Institute at In
dianapolis, training boys to skilled
trades, is supported largely by bust
ness men who have the tomorrow
idea. The Lowell Textile School has
back of it manufacturers of fabrics
and textile machinery representing a
capital of is 5000, 0O0.
Not a few concerns hav: taken hold
OF this problem themselves. R. Hoe
| & Co. in their New York plant, the
Baldwin Locomotive Works at Phila-
| delphia, the Browne & Sharpe Com
pany at Providence. are instances of
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