Eastern Shore Herald, August 10, 1906

Untitled

Infrastructure -- Commercial - Real estateForests -- Forest products - LumberInfrastructure -- Commercial - FactoriesFields -- Canneries

The steady and healthy increase in land values in Northampton county during the past ten years furnishes abundant proof of the increasing prosperity of our people, and of their faith in the worth of our real estate. Our peninsula is, by its possession of material advantages, certainly unexcelled, if not unequaled, by any in our country, and its citizens show wisdom in recognizing these facts. We join them in the hope and believe that as these advantages and superior qualities become more generally recognized, our lands will continually enhance. But why should those who have money to invest confine themselves to real estate, when many other fields, equally remunerative, lie open and ready for their labors? Why should we wait for foreign capitalists to invade our midst and establish well-paying enterprises, the profits from which will be taken from us and stored in foreign pockets, or reinvested here? Our people are most short-sighted in this one particular -- sufficient financial courage to put into operation industries which experience, as well as their own judgment, tells them in no uncertain tones, would be to their immediate pecuniary benefit, to say nothing of the ultimate results, which necessarily and inevitably follow such undertakings, and make themselves strongly felt in all the surrounding territory.

The lumber industry, which is now on the boom (in spite of the high prices paid for timber), as proven by the number of mills in our county, was never engaged in by our people, but was introduced in our midst by our more enterprising neighbors from Maryland. We pay annually hundreds of dollars for guano at such prices per ton as enable the manufacturers, after paying city prices for their factories, or city rates for them if rented, cost of manufacture, freights from the factories here, and allowing for bad and uncollectable sales, such profits that the proprietors usually grow rich. Why can we not, by making our own fertilizers, save to ourselves all this surplus over a reasonable profit on the goods? Several gentlemen in the county have tried manufacturing fertilizers for their individual use and have gotten as good results with it as with bought goods, at about two-thirds the cost of the latter. And it can be done even more cheaply if the ingredients are bought in large quantities and at wholesale rates. It has been tried, so we are not taking a leap in the dark by establishing a factory here, but simply saying to ourselves the profits which we have too long paid over to those who if asked would say "there's no money in the fertilizer business; don't try it." And thus are we foolishly deceiving ourselves, at a cost of at least five dollars a ton.

And why do we, in the land of corn, potatoes, peas, tomatoes and many other vegetables which are elsewhere canned at a profit, allow them to waste and rot during the summer, and buy them from our shrewd neighbors, the foreign canners, during the winter? Nature has blessed us of the Eastern Shore, why should we not, instead of waiting for the fruits to fall to the ground, reach up and out for the greater benefits that may be had for the asking and a slight effort on our part?