The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-08-18
Bumper Crops Last Year
Enabled Roads to Recover
Part of Previous Losses
RAILROADS IN NEED OF
BILLIONS NEW CAPITAL
Experts Estimate Five Billion Dollars
Amount Required for Desired
improvements and Terminal
Facilities
BY HOLLAND

BY HOLLAND
New York, August 17.-(Special.) If
it be true that were there to be taken
out of American coil by agriculture
each year commodities of the money
value of $1o.ooO,oO0, 900. the time would
speedily come when most of the rail-
roads of the United States could de-
clare dividends of 10 per cent. what
were the American soil to yield agri-
cultural products each yea: Of the
value of s15,OoO,OOo, 900?
Several of the best authorizes have
for some years asserted that American
agriculture ought each year to pro-
duce new wealth aggregating $4,000 GEO., :
600. James ]. Hill, in one of his ad-
dresses, went so far as to demonstrate
that possibility as a certainty if scientific
methods which he advocated were fol-
lowed
Howard Elliott, who had long expert
ence in the northwest as president OF
the Northern Pacific Railroad company,
and who has now had a short expert
ence as president of the New Haven
Railroad company, in one of his addresses
showed clearly what the relation of agri-
cultural prosperity to the railroads might
be and in fact was, showing also how
this prosperity would be distributed so
as to affect favorably the entire people.
AS long ago as 1852. William H. Sew
ard, then member of the United States
Senate, pointed out the possibilities of
general prosperity through the cultiva-
ton of the soil, with it'll direct effect upon
railroads, stimulating the construction of
new lines and especially one to the Pa
cific coast.
1t was said this morning in the financial
district that were the railroads of the
United States able to look back over
period of five years and report average
net earnings as great as those winch
the railroads are now earning many I'M
provements would already be under way,
some of them vital. il the prosperity OF
the country is to continue, as many be-
lieve it will, for the next five yetrs.
MAKING UP FOR BAD YEARS
Railway managers say that 1t was
partly due to the movement OF the rec
ord crops of last year and the year pre-
yious that the railroad companies are
able to report greatly increased earnings.
However, the chief reason for these in
creased earnings, especially upon the
lines east of the Mississippi river, is to
be found in the movement of manu-
featured commodities from the industrial
centers to the seaports. Great crops and
an export trade which is without any
precedent, together with general In
crease in business prosperity, nave maze
records for the railroads which the man
ayers are contemplating with gratif1ca-
ton.
They say. however, that these greatly
increased net earnings are doing no
more than making good the general de-
moralization in railway business which
was first noticed about 1912. If the rail-
roads can continue to make net earn
ings comparable with those which nave
recently been reported they Will undoupt-
eddy also be able successfully to approach
the money markets for the purpose or
obtaining fresh capital.
One of the best of the estimates re-
Gently made by expert authorities asserts
that the railroads of today need not less
than 5000. 900 in order to per-
feet improvements and enlarge terminal
ia ABILITIES 1t is believed that excellent
earnings and the promise of continual
ton of them will undoubtedly stimulate
investing capital so that railway man
ayers can obtain what they have Tor
seven or eight years needed-abundant
supplies of fresh capital.
The record breaking earnings which the
railroad companies-or many of them
are now reporting to be gaining should
in due time stimulate activity in that
part of the securities market where rail-
road stock and bonds predominant.
OUTLOOK FOR REST OF YEAR
Were it not for the heavy demands upon
American industries for commodities
needed by European nations, the some
what disappointing harvest of this sum-
mer would make it impossible for the
railroads to report greatly increased net
ca 1nings Nevertheless, those who are
best informed are of the opinion that
when official statistics that tell the story
in full of the harvest are published 1t
will be discovered that the United States
has harvested at least an average crop
OF everything except wheat.
From California yesterday came infor-
nation which tends to support the view
of those who some years ago experiment.
ed in the cultivation of cotton in the
southern part of that state. The expert
ments these adventures made seemed
to Justify the opinion that California
would be able in time to harvest large
amount of cotton, so large as to appre-
ciably affect the total American harvest
of the year. 1t is a cotton which would
not come directly into competition with
the cotton produced in the southern
states, excepting possibly the sea island
cotton The fibre is long and the raw
cotton is a kind especially valuable for
the newly established cotton manufactur-
ing interest in Peru and other parts of
South America.
So also, CALIFORNIA; industrial activi-
ties are now making it possible for that
state to report great increases in the har-
vests of rice A few years ago, when
heat was regarded, outside of the fruits
OF California, as the chief agricultural
product of the state, nobody would have
ventured to predict that by the year 1916
California would demonstrate her ability
to be reckoned among the cotton pro-
ducing states and also to take rank with
the rice producing states on the gulf
coast of the south.
SEVEN YARDS ARE