The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-01

fashion of the appraisement of dormant assets and the presentation of the hg- ures in way understandable to the common stoekholder
 A growing appreciation of the dollar and cent value of reserves of raw mate rial has contributed in no small degree to the impressive market advances of many important railroads and industrials notably the anthracite group, Baltimore and Ohio, Chesapeake and Ohio, Norfolk and Western, Great Northern, Canadian Pacific. United States Steel, leading cop Der companies, the fertilizer companies, Columbus and Hooking Coal and Iron, and many others
 Columbus and Hooking Coal and Iron, though a small company of only s7.0OOO0o capital, was for nearly generation blindly oblivious to one of it's reserve as- sets which only needed the kind Of ap- praisement given by MT. Sehwab to the big Steel company's iron ore deposits 10 awaken it's principal stockholders to keen though belated knowledge that they were letting a great money maker lie dead un- der their feet Their experts found in one tract of their Hooking valley land 25O0 acres with 50 feet of excellent clay there- in measuring more than 500O0,0OO cubic yards, of which at least 400OOO,OO0 cubic yards was available for conversion Into brick and other products
 To get something of an idea what a de- post of that kind means, according to the Schwab plan of appraisement, 1t may be said that 1 cent a cubic yard would be s. O00O00, and cents. which would be equivalent to about 171a cents per 1000 bricks would foot up $20000,O00. These figures are too small to be seriously con sidered. even in the light of a perpetual underlying royalty on production, but they will enable the lay reader to get a glimmering of the money meaning of an enormous asset of that sort. The con- struetion of the largest brick plant in America right in the middle of that 25OO acres of clay testifies to the impression the discovery made on the company's management and might afford explana- ton for the recent big rise in the stock.
 Wonder how many people outside of close students of government statistics on international commerce know that our annual exports of cotton are as great in value as the aggregate exports of lard, bacon, hams, cattle, beef. wheat, flour, corn. kerosene oil and copper? Cotton of the value of $417 00O,000 went out of the country last year. All the articles enumerated above could only muster S429,0o0 GOO combined. Copper was the sec ond largest exportation, $S2,0oO000 and oil was next in line with $71,0000O0. Wheat flour and corn footed up s144, o0O,0o0, or only about one-third as much as the souths great product. Surely cotton Is king
 The enthusiasm of Canadians over the stupendous development in the far north west Is mighty impressive Nine out of ten Canadians one meets in New ' York- and a great many of them are here on business-talk as though they really be- lieve that in the course of a few years oieo fInaaf enough to feed the world. They are build ing railroads right up to the Arctic cir cle with which to carry these prodigious prospective crops. The Saskatchewan val ley is going to be about the biggest thing on the map. and will make everybody rich who buys stock in any of the rail- roads that are pointing that way. So they say.
 The New York Central and Pennsylva- mia railroads are showing renewed life in their work upon the New York terminals. That great gash in the ground made by the Pennsylvania on Thirty-second, Thir- ty-third and Thirty-fourth streets west of Seventh avenue. which has defaced the landscape for the last two years. is once more filling up with an army of work men. Steel girders are going in place. and it really begins to look as though in the course of time mighty structure will take shape. The RennSylVanla people expect to be running passenger trains into Manhattan island before another year has elapsed.
 One of the things which will soon con- front railway managements is the wages of their million or moro employees. By their own admission the railroads are now making money everywhere, and it will not be long before the exhibits put out for Wall street consumption will be taken advantage of by workmen in the shape of demands for larger percentages of the earnings.
 As long money can be obtained in goodly volume for six months at 316 per cent there is no real danger of a slump in the stock market A good many of the big people who have gone with the mar ket on its great rise are undoubtedly scaling down their holdings and taking profits, but big public seems ever ready to step in and assume the burden.