The central record. (Lancaster, Ky.) 18??-current, 1911-03-10
Our Need.

what Lancaster, anu OdTTdrU County
needs is market for their products.
Whynot tobacco, hemp or wool fac
tory, one or all? But, you will say ''they
would not pay How do you know,
you never tried them, they have paid
other places why not here. Again you
will say 'Our water supply is made
quate." Again we answer that we have
a splendid system of water works, it is
true the capacity is limited, but should
it be deemed advisable, or become nee
essary, with the expenditure of very
small amount, comparatively, we could
extend the present main to Dix river,
where an inexhaustable supply of
water for all purposes could be obtain
ed. Thus are the most potent objec-
lions to local factories disposed of.
Now for the reasons that we do not
have manufactures, mills and loose leaf
tobacco markets, as other towns of our
size have. The chief reasons is the
failure upon the part of home people to
invest their capital in home industries,
because of the fact, as they claim, that
it would not pay. Again we say you
do not know, you have never tried, and
until you have tried, you will never
know,
Surely here where the raw material
is produced, it can be manufactured as
cheaply as it can where it has to be
transported to distance and the addi-
tional expense of transportation added
to the cost of manufacture.
Did you ever stop to consider that
our hemp produced here in the county
is shipped to Boston and other eastern
points, there manufactured into rope,
clothing and other finished products,
brought back here and sold to US. Our
tobacco is shipped to Louisville, Cincin-
matt and everywhere else, manufactured
and returned to US to be retailed. Our
wool is shipped away and returned in
the same manner. Wheat, because of
the fact that we produce but limited,
quantity, is mostly consumed at home.
With this probable exception, every
thing which is produced in Garrard
county is shipped away to be manufac-
tured
We defy the world to show us more
productive area of country than Gar
rard county, territory that will pro-
Once greater variety of farm products
and stock. And yet with all this We
must need send it all away to come
back to US in the manufactured form.
Such a state of case is crying shame,
one that would not exist in the north
ern states. There, they would erect
factories which would furnish ready
market for every one of these products,
and would establish a trade for the fin
ished products rather than the raw
material; aside from this, they would
employ hundreds of hands. We as well
as they could do all of this.
If all the capital which has been sent
out of Garrard county in the last Is
wears to be invested in ''boom towns"
Building & Loan Associations &c.
and lost, had been invested in substan-
tial home industries, the investors
would have been much the richer and
the town more thrifty thereby. We
have had Commercial Clubs, Develop
ment Association and the like without
number, outside of holding one or two
enthusiastic meetings and adopting a
battle cry, they have done nothing.
Like the child's toy, when the novelty
has worn off it is cast aside.
Better adopt the ''if at first you don't
succeed theory. This has been prov
en- right here in our midst in the case
of the old Minor mill, which was erect
ed and started, its owners concluded il
would not be paying investment, ano
practically abandoned for several years
when it was bought by other men re-
equipped and started, with what sue
cess we all know, Too many of oul
people are imbued with the idea tina
Lancaster will never amount to any
thing as a manufacturing point, to'
much lack of appreciation of the hom'
town and its possibilities, lack of nerve
failure to seize the opportunities t.