The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-04-03

will nrobablv give us over 250,000. They used to say that we were putting up of- fee buildings too fast for our needs, but each one has filled up. The grain busi-
 ness is the biggest in Portland In Janu- arv the quantity of grain exported from the place was second only to that sent
 out from New York.
 All the fruit in the country about Fort land has to come there to be shipped, and, or course this has become a tremendous industry during the last few years. we
 don't need irrigation in that part or ore eor. But the demand for good products in our part of the state has increased so rapdly of late that we have had to get good deal of our supplies from the middle west The fruit business pays so | we'll sometimes as much as 5000 or more an acre. that many people who have capi- tai go irto it.
 'I know a man who five or SIX years ago bought 250 acres of land of which a great part was an orchard. It's cost, ih- cluding all the improvements he put on | if was S34, ,000 One year he cleared $400O0. | He shipped carloads of pears that brought in New York at auction SS box He recently sold out for $160,O0O. out Of that investment he had netted $5o,oOo. An other man I know bought place Tor S5o . 900 five years ago and sold out recently for S175000.
 About the main topics out there are
 real estate and building. Property in the retail district has practically doubled in value in the last six years
 The industrial development of the south is evidenced by the announcement Of the Southern railway that it must buy $lO.O0o- GOO of new equipment.
 Movement of traffic over the Southern is heavier than ever before and this may
 he said to be equally true of the Seaboard Air Line, the Atlantic Coast Line, the Louisville and Nashville and other sys- tems In the south.
 | It seems to be recognized that the rail- | roads of the southeast are now doing as | large a business as their present facilities | can accommodate, while the volume of | freight is increasing every day. In the | circumstances it would seem that they
 will be forced to provide additional track age. terminals. equipment, etc, or lace conditions similar to those prior to the de- | pression, when they were unable to han | dle all business offered.
 | In the 22 months the receivers operated the Seaboard Air Line railway, from Jan nary 1908. to November 4. 1909, they ex-
 pended upward of s5,000,000 improving the | system. and since the reorganization ap- | proximately S1,500, 900 has been appropri- | ated for the purchase of additional cars | and engines
 The Atlantic Coast Line and the Louis vile and Nashville also have added to | their equipment, and now the Southern railway announced that it is about to place
 the largest orders in it's history.
 | The Southern and the Atlantic Coast 1 Line have laid second tracks on part oi their systems and 1t is understood that l eventually these companies and the Louis | vile and Nashville will double-track their ! entire main line.
 l It is estimated that this work would | cost well above S50,0c0.000 and that in l time at least that amount of some form
 of bond will be floated to defray the ex- pense of these undertakings
 | Attention is being called to new eco | nomical question in the south which may
 be stated in general terms that the devel- opment of water power hurts coal con | sumption The subject has been brough. | forward by writers employed to exploit | coal companies, and the warning has gone | forth to investors in coal plants that the utilization of water to drive machinery, especially in the states of Virginia and North Carolina, threatens to interfere ma terially with the returns of the coal com panies It is estimated that in the last two years fully G00,0o0 tons of coal have been displaced in the Piedmont section of the Carolinas, and experts say this loss will be increased to 1,500,0o0 tons in five years It is contended that water power is cheaper and in many respects more sat- isfactory than coal and that many of the largest cotton mills there have substituted 1t for steam, and others are arranging to make the change.