The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-01-28

11eL6 i4hS4S W DO OSoDASu IL va
pacity.
About 40 business and professional
men of Brattleboro, in a meeting under
the auspices of the Men s club of the
Unitarian church in the parish house
last night, heard from the lips of
Clarke c. Fits for the first time in
Brattleboro his ideas regarding the
conservation of the resources of the
state, with special reference to the con
servation of the great undeyeloped wa
ter powers. Not only did Mr.. Fits
discuss this subject with many of its
qualifications, but at the conclusion of
his address he answered many questions
which led him into a still wider field.
This was by no means the least inter
esting period of the evening.
Asked what kinds of industries
might be expected to follow the de-
velopment of water power into a
hydro-electric plant he replied: St" All
industries where power is the largest
factor or where heat is a great es-
sential'' He cited the textile industry
and paper mills. the latter seeking
proximity to water as well as needing
quantities of power and heat.
Outlay in Nottingham
He then surprised at least some of
auditors by remarking that $4,000 had
been spent in the last year in the edge
of Nottingham in the building of &
plant for the manufacture of carbide
! bv means of an electric furnace from
the rock there. Vermont, he said, has
lot of low grade iron ore and the
electric furnace Is being so rapidly de-
veloped that there is every prospect
that with low cost of electricity and
the ore, Vermont can become a pro-
Queer of products of the ore. Referring
to the textile industry he said that he
expected to see the textile plant in
| this town doubled in capacity in two
or three years
| Asked concerning the effects of the
| development of cheap electric power
! on railroads. he gave the history of the
forced beginning of that form of
| Transportation as the result of the
/ Park Avenue tunnel disaster in New
! York and said that the tremen-
dous expense incurred by the New
| Haven road had held back this develop
ment in New England. But improved
ways are being developed and in the
/ West there are several roads that have
electrified long divisions of their roads
at much less expense. He expects TO sec
within Il decade both roads operating
through Brattleboro using electricity
solely for motive power. He said that
within two weeks he was engaged il
conversation with an engineer of one OF
the roads, who was in Brattleboro sew
eral days in the course of his work
of estimating on the expense of electri
fcation. That engineer told him that
it was considered that a single tract
road electrified was so per cent as ef
fective as q double track steam road.
Too Costly to Heat Houses.
When asked whether he expected t.
see the time when houses would bt
heated by electricity he replied that i
was some distance in the future as a
present it cost $3.50 to heat with elec
tricity an ordinary eight-room house.
Mr.. Fits opened his address by say
ing that the present interest of Yer
Imonters in conservation had its incep
tion in the action of Brattleboro bust
: ness men in subscribing funds for tn
. preliminary surveys for the construc
ton of the power plant at Vernon, tn
first development of the resources o
the Connecticut river in Vermont.
He pointed out the difference in tn
laws Of western and eastern states re
garding water rights. In Vermont i
the original grants of land there wa
no reservation of water rights.
He told of the legislative efforts i
Indiana and Oklahoma to conserve tn
3 natural gas found in those states an