The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30
STOCK MARKET
 STILL VERY DULL But General Business Is
 Satisfactory MABEN ON IRON TRADE
Birmingham Industrial Man Says Future Is Uncertain and Will Continue so For Vari-
 ous Reasons

New York, April 29.-(Special )-The stock market continues to break records of dullness with painful regularity for brokers. All sorts of excuses have been advanced to account for the dullness and the optimistic Wall street men still are seeing better times just ahead. The trou- ble is it remans ahead with the persist ence of a Mexican msnana. It would seem as though the stock had made the discovery of perpetual Immortality. l In the meantime the general business of the country goes along in nice, sat isfactory manner. paying apparently no particular attention to the sufferings of the business heart of the country" as the region down about the stock ex- change loves to think of itself
 do not write to be understood to say there is anything like a boom on in any particular line. As a matter of face there is a general spirit of caution and a disposition to reasonable economy which makes for soundness.
 | The Simmonds Hardware company of St. Louis is one of the largest agricul- tural implement distributors in the coun- try. It employs a. large staff of travel ing salesmen and in order to guage the prospects of it's own business conducts a systematic inquiry through these sales- men Into business conditions and pros- poets. The following is a summary of the most recent reports from salesmen on the agricultural prospects and general business conditions: Agricultural condi- ! sound and the winter wheat crop, which is the only generally growing crop of importance at present, is in most ex- cellent condition. Considerable damage is reported from the western and south western portions of Kansas and the west ern portion of Oklahoma, because of dry weather and winter killing. In these dis | tricts a moderate amount of wheat has been plowed up and the acreage planted | in oats
 | some damage, though not extensive nor or serious nature, is likewise re- ported from western Nebraska because of dry weather. Some damage by he's sian fly Is reported from southern Mis- souri, Illinois and Indiana, but nothing Of serious moment. Beyond this the story
 
 winter wheat belt and of as excellent a promise in general as can be hoped for The decrease in acreage is confined al- most entirely to those sections of the west and the southwest where dry wealth. CT has prevailed, while other portions in general show some increased. As a whole, there appears to be moderate increase in acreage over this time last year of | about 21a per cent. The general story all over the country | is that larger acreage than ever be- fore Is being planted in cotton and all grains; in fact, in all farm products.
 Farmers are said to be generally buy ing freely of farm implements, and espe- cially of better grades and higher types.
 During 1911 and 1912 our railroad com panies have bonds and notes and equip- ment obligations falling due to the total or $443, ,OS5, $50, against grand total for all corporations last year of $500, ,576 1OO The current years railroad maturities aggregate 561s6.15o; the 1912 total is only slS6,sss2 200. The 1909 figure for both rail- road and industrial companies was $274,- 344 300 and In 1908 03,513,S41
 Since January, 1907, the output of new bonds, notes and stocks by railroad, trac- ton, industrial and mining corporations has reached, according to the records of the Journal of Commerce, the huge total of s6,671 .150,Sso. of which bonds have con tributed S.S24, ,63s, ,7SS. notes sl157, ,154, ,SO2, and stocks sl,SS9. .357,3 ,345.
 For the five years 19OS-1912, the naturi- ties aggregate s1,621, ,52O,1s1 or about 25 per cent of the new issues for a sim liar period, and as the industrial obli- gations falling due have been included only in part, it may be computed that some 30 per cent of the capital raised each year goes for refunding or for re- demption purposes.
 J. c. Maben of Birmingham, president of the Sheffield Steel and Iron com pany says the future is uncertain for the iron trade and will continue so until the many uncertainties, including the su- preme court decisions and a definite idea of what Congress intends to do in its present session in the matter of tariff re- vision are out of the way. In an inter- view he said:
 Tn the south the iron industry is a lag gard. The demand is nothing to speak of, although we are disposing of compara- lively large aggregate tonnage each month, made up of small lots; but taking the situation as whole, there Is nothing that I can see that would tend to improve | conditions to any great extent over the next few months at least Sloss now has lo3OOO tons of pig iron stacked in it's yards, the largest tonnage ever reported, which indicates the stagnant condition of the Iron market over the last several months. However, we are operating at low cost and can now turn out iron be- low $9 ton on an average We have four blast furnaces in operation. and these four furnaces are turning out more iron at present than was produced by nve furnaces previously. One of our furnaces, the smallest one we are operat- irs' which is on the eighth year of blast on the same lining. averaged PAP tons a. cay during March. AS to earnings, it was generally expected that our first quarter would not show up very fayor- ably. However, we earned our preferred