The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-12-14
STEEL PLANTS ID START WORK AGAIN Which Have Now Been Idle
 for Some Time DEMAND FOR PIG IRON Railroad Buying Has Been Small This Week-Steel Corporation Making
 an Excellent Showing
 Throughout Country
DEMAND FOR PIG IRON

New York, December 13.-(Speelal1-A1 1e Iron Age will say tomorrow:
 The surprising statement Of the Steel corporation showing 447,000 tons increase in November in it's unified orders for mn ished and semi-fnished steel has added to the favorable sentiment which has gained ground in the past two weeks.
 Since the beginning of this month the Steel corporations bookings have been at a much greater rate than in NoVem- Der, considerably exceeding 5oooo tons a day.
 In wire an advance of S1 ton made by the American Steel and Wire com pany, effective Monday is now general Important sheet producers have put up their prices & ton or to 1.90c for No' 2s black sheets and 2.90c for galvanized. In bars leading mills are now holding for 1.15c as minimum, both for prompt shipment and first quarter of 1912
 That both merchants and manufactur- CTS have been trying to build up their ragged stocks at the low prices explains in part what has happened in bars, and the same applies, though to a less extent, to plates and shapes. The mills have now a much larger bar tonnage booked than at any time this year. and all are prac- tically filled up for the first quarter with a considerable percentage of capacity taken up, in some cases for the second quarter.
 At the opening of the year several steel companies will start up plants now fdle The Steel corporation, in view of the in- creased activity of it's sheet and tin plate plants, particularly the latter, will start it's Columbus, O., steel works January ?, plant that is operated only under unusual demand. After January l the Stee, corporation will have between S5 and 90 per cent of its steel capacity ac- tive.
 Railroad buying has been small this week, and in the Steel corporations book ings for November it amounted to only 10 per cent. The Pennsylvania railroad car order may be much larger than the 10000 originally proposed. The Great Northern order for 40,000 tons of rails and the Northern Pacific contract, variously esti- mated at S5,000 to 5000 tons, are about to be closed.
 Cleveland, O., December 13.-ISpe- cial)-The Iron Trade Review tomor- row will say
 The trend of events continues in the right direction and hopes of great ly increased buying by railroads are ap- parently well founded. In some places, however, t. pecially at eastern mills, Improvement is slow and plants are be- ing operated only from 50 to 50 per cent of capacity. In the Pittsburg dis triet capacity in operation is increas- ing.
 The Steel corporal ation throughout the country is making an excellent show ing. The Columbus plant of the Car negie Steel company. which has been idle more than a year, will resume about January 1. Earnest efforts of mills to obtain higher prices on fin ished products have continued with considerable success, but whether some recent advances have not been justified has been fully determined.
 Buying of pig iron continued in good volume, but low prices still prevail. Stove measures In the Detroit district purchased 10000 tons of foundry grades for next years delivery. A sanitary interest in Pittsburg has purchased 1000 tons. Sales of all grades in Buff falo district aggregated from 25,000 to 30000 tons and prices are frmer in, that market. About 30,000 tons of southern iron were sold for western de- livery. For some time past the sheet market has been in thoroughly un- satisfactory condition from the stand point of the seller.
 Considering cost of manufacture the lowest prices in the history of the trade have prevailed and buying has been of the nd-to-mouth order Recently there have been some signs of inn provement and mills have just an- nounced new quotations of 1.40 Pitts burg on blue anneaed 10. 10; 190 on black No. 28, and 2.90 on galvanized No. 2S, which quotations are S1 a ton over the ordinary prices recently made and $2 above the lowest quAtations Similar conditions have prevailed in re- gard to wire products on which an advance of s1 ton has been an- nounced.