The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-11-03
BEANS MEAN MONEY FOR THE BUTLER MAN Unique Industry Is Built Up
 At GeOrgiana FEED FOR THE CATTLE The Farmers Can Now Drive Up and Get the Real Cash for Their
 Velvet Beans and
 Corn
FEED FOR THE CATTLE


 poet Pope may have been wrong after all when he declared that "a little learn ing is dangerous thing for I have met a man today who had only common school education, but who by sheer force of native wit and following out his own experiments, without any books to guide him, but with a determination to sue ceed, has built up a business that pro, vides the sorely distressed boil Weevil farmer with a cash market for a crop that is easily grown, and the dairymen of Birmingham and Jacksonville. Fla, with new form of feed which is com posed of velvet beans as base
 The McGowan & Bennett company have built up an industry here that calls for an annual outlay of more than $25,000 for velvet beans alone, not counting the 1arsa sums of money required for com, alfalfa, oats and the other products that go 10 make up the excellent feed they put out.
 The young man in charge, and who seems to be the chemist, director-in fact,
 the whole thing-was very kind and showed me over the plant and explained how he came to hit on the plan of mak- ing the new mixed feed. When in school he had a leaning to chemistry and got what he could out of the common school courses Later he read all the books he could find on feeds, but in none of them could he find out anything about velvet. beans Henrys book of feeds mentioned practically everything under the sun ex- cept beans. Noting that cows were very fond of the beans in their natural state,
 he set about finding how he could grind them up and make them keep without becoming soggy, and without deteriora- tion After repeated efforts he finally hit on the plan of running the beans on a conveyor through hot air pressure for a given length of time with the happy re- suit that he thus steriliZed the beans and made it possible to put them into any combination he desired. By continuing to rely on himself, and not on books, he kept up his work until today he makes and puts on the market a mixed feed that runs higher in milk and fat forming ele- ments than has heretofore been possible. FARMER GETS THE MONEY It makes clodhopper like the writer glad when he can see a farmer drive up and deliver ton of beans and get tho tidy sum of from SIS to $2O for his load.
 And then, to. if the farmer has any corn to spare he can drive in with that, and he does not have to snuck the corn like it was done when I was coming up, be- cause the factory has machine that takes care of that end of it with the re- suit that the shelled corn runs out at one end and the cobs another, and all the 1 time the factory is mixing in rhe "black strap" with the alfalfa ana the other in- gredients that go to make the milk that makes the butter that the groceryman charges us 45 cents pound for.
 | Upon inquiry I found that the old | Louisville and Nashville rose to the oc- casion with this anternrise just as they done with the mining and coal busi- | ness in Birmingham. They gave the concern a milling in transit rate, making rate on black strap molasses from
 Havana, Cuba, to Georgiana that enabled
 the milling company 10 import 1t and | work it up to advantage If were traf- l fife manager of the M. and M. division Of | the Louisville and Nashville, would take | a day off and look over something that CO., I opera tive effort between farmers, manu- | lecturers and railroads brought about. l You don't hear anybody in this neck of l the woods cussing the Louisville and l Nashville, but you do hear many far 1 mer declaring that the money derived | from the sale of his velvet beans will be 1 the means tf keeping his daughter In | school and his boys satisfied. Waen I re- | fleet that the 45 cents am taxed for but
 ter goes all the rounds and finally helps
 the producer I am somewhat reconciled. While was in the plant I saw sack
 after sack of the feed going out to Bir-
 mingham, with big lot of it going as
 far as Jacksonville, to which point this same enterprising traffic manager had made working rate.
 LIKE THE AGE-HERALD
 l But if you want to see place where | they put on style you ought to go inca the office of the local weekly paper The so- 1 ciety editor had great big pencil, shears