Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1874 — Manufactories. [ARTICLE]

Manufactories.

The thought is sometimes expressed that the establishment of manufactories in a community is of no benefit except to those who are direelly engaged in them. Farmers have beerr heard - to“Rtyr"when, they hear that capitalists intend locating some manufacturing interest at the county seat or some other suitable town, that it is no , benefit to them; and when asked to j contribute a quota to induce the Ideation of Such interests in t eir midst, they refuse, saying,“let those ‘ give who will be directly benefited . it is no advantage to us farmers—- ! we do not expect to get work at the j shops —let the store keepers raise I the bonus, for they will reap the ; profit—wo wil| never get a return tor our money’’ and many similar and equally fallacious arguments. Now let all who entertain such | suicidal views, read carefully the following statement of facts, and then say that the establishment of manufacturing interests in their midst is not a real and positive benefit in dollars that the amount they contribute was not the best investment of their ! lives: “A good illustration ofwhatinanufactuies can do for a town may be ; found in the history of Canton, ; Ohio, where Ball’s reapers are : made. When the inventor went : there it was one of the dullest and ■ least productive towns in tiie State ~re trograding in weal tb wndpopul -a—- ---; tion. But some of the citizens j appreciated the situation and its I possibilities for improvement. — Ball asked for '510,000 to help start a manufactory; it vva.s_ raised for him. In five years the town has doubled its population and trebled its taxable valuation; and out of the investment had sprung two large agricultural implement manufactories, employing 2,500 men, one of plows exclusively, one of stoves and hbl’owware, one of reaper ami mower knives, one of Yaddlery hardware, two of horse rakes, one olLfarnr wagons,-one of cultivators, one of wrought iron bridges, one of soaps, and others of miscellaneous characters, In supplying this large population a niarket for farm produce has also been meitred, whicTi Is building up all the region round about, and carrying wealth and comfort into homes within a circuit of t wenty miles.” And CanUm, is not the only place whose results are similar, not a place, from Maine to the Gulf oi from the Atlantic to the Dacific, where the business was judiciously managed and suitably located, that the results were not equally favorable. The farmer may not realize a direct dividend on the money thus contributed, but the better market for iiis products, the increas ed value of his lands, show a better return, a more tangible div ideud than anything he could invest his money in.— South Bend Tribune,