Continued from Pag* Poor ?
Success Story
Through an agreement with Consolidated Products Com
pany, whey from the cheese plant is piped to a building
nearby where it is reduced to a semi-solid form, packed
in barrels, and shipped to producers of livestock and ,
poultry feeds.
During the past year the cheese plant paid farmers
$391,000 for milk. In addition, Grade A distributors in
Decatur paid out $255,000 to producers with whom they
had contracts. Local milk and dairy products plants now
provide jobs in town for more than 1Q0 workers.
To initiate these enterprises many meetings were held
with farmers who were taken into complete confidence
with respect to financial operations. They knew, just as
we did, that the program was an effort to build a
sounder economy for all the people of the community,
both town and country.
Catching the spirit of locally-owned business concerns, farm
ers in the Decatur area have gone into the making and dis
tributing of farm supplies on a big scale. In 1937, the Ten
nessee Valley Fertilizer Cooperative was organized by local
farmers with a paid-in capital of $10,300. In lesa than ten years
it has earned for its farmer-owners $237,000 and now has a
net worth of about $225,000. Today the Valley Cooperative
owns a modern fertilizer plant worth about $60,000, which
at peak season employs fifty or mofe people. It is affiliated
with eleven cooperatives in nearby counties, each of which
maintains a store and warehouse which do a general supply
business. The Decatur plant manufacturers fertilizer for about
2500 farmers.
Last year the Cooperative went into the seed business. In
a modern plant, built at a cost of $40,000, all kinds of farm
seeds are cleaned, stored and sold. Seed for planting winter
cover crops, once imported, is now produced by the farmers
of the territory which the plant serves. This year the Coopera
tive entered the feed business and Is now building a mill to
cost $125,000, which will be able to turn out 100 tons of mixed
feed In eight hours; the nety plant will turn out from fifteen
to twenty cars of feed daily. Feed will be distributed through
the same cooperative organizations with which the concern is
already dealing in selling fertilizer and seed.
? ? ?
Wood is one of the most abundant raw materials in the
Southeast; in Alabama and all surrounding states about half
the land is devoted to growing trees. Most communities are
content to sell their trees just as the logs come lrom the
lorest, but not Decatur. Here there are factories that convert
wood into cabinets, boats, brooms and other finished articles
v/hlch create local jobs and add value to the materials used. Six
locally-owned Industries in Decatur last year paid farmers and
landowners in the trade territory $49^000 for forest products.
One of these, the Decatur Box and Basket Company, employs
-about seventy-five men and women in the making of contain
ers for fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Nine-tenths of Decatur's industries are home-owned, but
among its important agricultural industries the Alabama Flour
Mill is an exception. The mill, which has the capacity to con
vert 150,000 bushels of grain into flour and feed each month,
is a subsidiary of the Nebraska Flour Mills 'of Omaha. It came
to Decatur in 1941 because the city, located on the Tennessee"
River, has been made accessible by inland waterways through
the work of the TVA. After the nine-foot channel in the
Tennessee River had been opened, it was possible to load
barges with wheat at Kansas City on the Missouri Rlver:
move down the Mississippi, into the Ohio and up the Tennessee .
to unload at a mill on the waterfront at Decatur. But man
agement of the "foreign" flour mill entered immediately and
wholeheartedly into the campaign of Decatur people in mak
ing markets for all the farm products grown In the locality.
"Upon establishing our mill in Decatur, we announced that
we would buy all the grain offered to us by .farmers in. the
territory," explained A. L. Johnson, general manager:
The first year we were not able to buy any local grain.
But each year since, local purchases have increased.
During the past season we paid Alabama farmers $684,
000 for wheat, oats, barley, milo and corn.
Located in the nation's highest per capita flour-consuming
section, this mill has succeeded beyond its owners' hopes; its
storage and processing facilities will be doubled in the near
future. More than two hundred people are now employed at
the mill.
Many other agricultural industries play important parts in
providing markets tor farmers and jobs for industrial workers.
Among these are the Decatur Oil Mills, which paid farmers
$2,500,000 for cottonseed, and the Home Oil Mills, which paid
$430,000 for peanuts. Tennessee Valley Farm Industries, a new
business, has just completed a poultry dressing plant which
will handle 12,000 broilers daily; during the summer and fall it
paid farmers about $170,000 for chickens. Cotton handled in
the local market added $5,000,000 to the bank accounts of
farmers in the trade territory.
Several individuals are operating interesting, and in some
Instances unique, Industries and services in Decatur. Five years
ago, for example, Dennis McClendon started a harness repair
shop on a very small scale. Later he began making leather,
lines, for which he found a ready sale. Now he operates a more
venturesome leather goods manufacturing concern that em
cmploys sixty people. " ?
After having served as apprentices with the Decatur Iron
and Steel Company, which during the war built tugs and
landing craft, Melvin Ozier and Bob Wilson established a
metal-working 'business called the Willo Products Company.
Financing the business presented no serious problem; Decatur
is now quick to back its young man who have the "know
how" for making things. These young men make, among other
things, tanks in which farmers store tractor fuel.
Southeastern Metals, of which R. H. Harris is president,
works with aluminum. This corporation now employs forty
young men and women; it was organized by three young De
catur men. The firm makes, kits Ifor the Boy Scouts of America
and various kinds of household utensils. "We started our busi
ness by getting a contract to make Army canteens," explained
President Harris. "But after the war was over, we had no dif
ficulty converting to civilian products. Now we get more orders
than we can accept."
These examples are typical of Decatur's seventy-five indus
trial and processing establishments, which now employ 4,143
men and women, black and white, and last year paid local
workers $6,500,000 in wages. Most of the plants are small,
home-owned lind home-operated. Like the farming program
with which many of them are related, they are "diversified" in
materials, products and the types of employment they provide.
Most Important of all, they solved the employment problem
of Decatur and Morgan County.
When the program was launched, the population of Decatur
was 13,593. By 1940, it had Increased to 16,604. It now has an
estimated population of 20,500. During the fifteen-yea* period,
Morgan County, of which Decatur Is the county seat, has gain
ed 3,000 In population, the city 7,000. Thus the city has pro
vided jobs for "surplus" farm workers in a county that ranks
among Alabama's fist five in the number of tractor-operated
farms.
"Never have we lost sight of the main objective ? providing
markets for the products of diversified agriculture," said May
nard Layman, in summarizing Decatur's eflorts to biflld a well
balanced economy. "We have talked about it constantly, work
ed hard, and accepted all the help we could get. But very early
in the game we learned that we had to accept responsibility
tor building our own community; others Would not do It. For
example, when we tried to provide a plant tor marketing and
manufacturing grade milk, we approached Borden, Pet, Carna
tion and all other big corporations In the business. All asked
how many cows we had. When we told them, they laughed.
So we were compelled to do the job ourselves. We found that
this same principle applied to every new project undertaken."
The "Decatur Plan," In which farmers grow the raw mate
rials for factories, can be styled to fit the commodities produced
in any community. It is the only way through which the typical
county seat In the Cotton Belt can creat? new payrolls. If
universally adopted, It would raise the earning power of both
rural and urban groups to something like a "parity" with In
comes in other sections of the nation. Best of all, It would
atop (he trek ot migratory labor from all over tbe Cotton South.
Say: "I no It Unrtbtd in The Pre#?".
TIRES
. Goodyear Tires and Tubes
Large Stock Available Now!
$2.00 lo $10.00 allowance on your old tires.
BUY THE BEST FOR LESS
? OPEN ALL NIGHT ?
SALES i \ SERVICE
24-Hcur Wrecker Service
DUNCAN MOTOR CO.
/ ?
What
did he
say?
FOR SERVICE ? PARTS ? ACCESSORIES
BURRELL MOTOR CO.
Day and Night Wrecker Service
Phone 123
' In Afghanistan written re
ceipts must be given for all
cash sales.
, CARD OF THANKS
We wish to express our ap
preciation for the many deeds
of kindness and sympathy
shown us during the illness and
at the time of the death of our
dear brother, Frank.
" THE NORTON FAMILY.
CARD OF THANKS
We wish to extend our many
thanks and appreciation to
those who were so kind and
showed so great a sympathy to
the bereaved ones of our dear
son, Wade Holland. Also for
the beautiful floral offerings.
Mrs. Theadosia Holland
and Family.
LEGAL ADVERTISING
COAL BIDS SOUGHT
The board, of county com
missioners of Macon County will
accept bids for the supply of
coal for the Courthouse and the
Agricultural building until 8
a. m., October 6, 1947, at which
time bids will, be opened and
contract let.
LAKE V. SHOPE,
Clerk, County Board of
Commissioners.
S25? ltc
SOUARE DANCE
EVERY
Saturday Night
at tihe
Slagle Memorial
Building
?
Music by the
Franklin
String Band
?
Sponsored by the
Lions Club
Admission
50c
CARPENTER STRING BAND
i
from WWNC ? Ashsville
Will appear at the
FRANKLIN COURTHOUSE
Friday, September 26, 8:00
Sponsored by Louisa Chapel Methodist Church
BIG TENT REVIVAL
REV. AND MRS. McGINNIS
Simms and McGinnis Evangelistic
Party
We wish to extend to every Church and its
Pastor a hearty welcome to come and be with
us this weak.
SERVICES
Each Evening 7:30 p. m.
Sunday 2:30 p. m. - 7:30 p. m.
Come ? Bring a Friend
DON'T FORGET SUNDAY NIGHT
TENT LOCATED
300 yards below Iotla Bridge
On Bryson City Road
Have You Got
Your Bonus Yet?
10 Cents
ON EVERY DOLLAR'S WORTH OF
FURNITURE YOU BUY AT
> i
SOSSAMON'S SEPTEMBER BONUS SALE
AT OUR STORE YOU'LL FIND THESE
SHOPPING ADVANTAGES
1. A wide variety to select from.
2. Values that will really surprise you.
3. Courteous, prompt, efficient service.
...PLUS...
A 10 Per Cent Bonus -
COME IN AND SEE FOR YOURSELF
Sossamon Furniture Co.
"Everything For Your Home"