The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-03
For Good of
 ~ the Community
The Connection Between the Farmer and Wire Drawing Mills Shown By Increase In Operations at Lafter---A Message
 From Oueralls

INT or all at once. Best not to have had itI that way. Extremes are not healthful The slowing down process was gradual. The bottom came padded The descent was byI steps, not by plunge. Men had time to trim sails. Their overhead was pruned from day to day They bought from hand to mouth. Safety first was the nations motto
 Not more than has been needed has been manufactured. Not more than retailers would buy has been on shelves of wholesalers. None came to the turning point overloaded. When August entered with the new tide jobber, man. ufacturer, wholesaler and retailer found al clean slate and clear sky
 Most agreeable among the findings made on the counting house ledgers on review of the first half of the year was that of good collec- tions. This is of fundamental significance Men had paid what they owed and bought no| more than they could pay for. The new trad ing is on velvet
 Something fundamental about an almost greater business in Overalls in August than in any preceding month of the year Overalls stand for work, employment. They were bought in greater quantities because more men were going to work here, there, everywhere.
 Many of these new overalls are being worn at the mills of the Gulf States Steel This paper
 is authorized to state that the finishing mills of this concern, after average production capac- ity of 20 per cent during'the first half of the year and some slight improvement in July, have attained and are operating on one of 45 per cent.
 Forty-five per cent is not 100 per cent, but it is more than 100 per cent increase over 20 per- cent. Why the increase? The farmer; cotton The country feels better on account of high er-priced cotton following on the heels of di- versified cash-fetching by-products and the farmer bethinks himself of barbed wire field fencing and the like That is where the wire drawing mills come ir
 So the wire drawing mills look for fair busi- ness all this autumn. Wire nails and fencing are evolved out of pig iron. Wire mill activity points to furnace activity in the nearby offing All industry harks back in the end to the start ing point.
 l August broke no records in investment of new capital in district enterprises but t| brought new business every two days and al total investment of $339, 100 in these new con- cerns.
 Neither did August make a new record in| the building of homes, but it showed the per- sistent trend that way Permits were issued forl lZ5 residences, which brings the total for the eight months of the year to 975. Birmingham folks are home loving and home building| ones. This city continues to lead her neighbors| in this evidence of her substantial character and her permanency.s For the first time since they put on the brakes and men quit going ahead the face brick plants of the district are operating at normal, produc- ing their capacity They are shipping more than production and orders are for more than production. These brick are going not to Bir- mingham and Alabama alone, but to Georgia, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Tennessee and Florida.
 One Birmingham stove founder is about to place hot blast heater on the market and an- other hot air furnace Birmingham has a lott more of diversified industries than her average1 citizen kens They kept things going when some of the big boys were stirring not.
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