The Jackson economist. (Winder, Ga.) 18??-19??, April 27, 1899, Image 1

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THE JACKSON ECONOMIST. VOL. VII. CITY OfGUMff. Municilipal Ownership Its Crowning Glory. York JournaL The methods and results of British municipal government may ftestbe studied in the concrete. No better instances can be selected than Glasgow. Asa type of the modern city with highly devel oped and vigorous municipal life, aud with complex yet unified in dustrial and social condition Glasgow i6 a model to us. In 18G9 the gas supply of the city was transferred from private bauds to the corporation, to be managed by the Council as an or dinary department. The original cost exceeded $2,000,000. Thirty yoars of management by the au thorities has given unmitigated satisfaction to all the citizens o' Glasgow. The quantity of gas sold increased from $1,026,000,000 in 1869-70, the first, to 3,126,000,- 000 in 1890 01. an increase of 170 per cent while the population had grown only 25 per cent. In 1897 the city with a total population of 800,000 was furnishing gas to 170,- 000 different consumers. From $1.14 per 1,000 feet, charged con sumers in 1869, the corporation has been able to make reductions year by years, until for several recent years the price has been fixed at 50 cents. No one will claim that a private company would have made these reductions while continuing to supply a satisfactory quality of gas, espe cially as the price of gas-making coal has greatly increased in Eng land. Yet the department has been able to construct new works —it dow owns four immense establish ments—pays its interest charges and running expenses, writes off large sums every year for depre ciation of works, pipes and meters, accumulates a sinking fund easily capable of paying off capital in debtedness as it matures. The to tal indebtedness was at the high est point in 1875 when it reached $5,300,000. The net debt is now reduced to about $2,400,000. In the rather gloomy winter climate of Glasgow, which necessitates a large use of artificial light, cheap gas is an inestimatable blessing and the more than doubling of the per capita u&e under city mauage urent means a vast increase in comfort and happiness. No other °ity in the world can at all com pare with Glasgow in the univer sality of the use of gas in the homes of the working classes. Recently an experiment has been made by the Gas Department lu supplying gas cooking stoves, b ally 70 per cent of the people of Glasgow live in houses of one or two rooms, using the same fire tor cooking and heating. This busi ness has. gone on briskly the city having a large sum invested in stoves. Last year the department bad 12,000 gas stoves of its own hired out, besides having sold many thousands. Meanwhile the municipal au thorities of Glasgow determined to monopolize the business of distrib uting electric light and power from Central establishments. They ob tained permission from Parliament 1D C Q 9O to undertake electric light lhg. They bought out an existing WINDER, JACKSON COUNTY, QEORQIA, THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 1899. private company, and ip 1893 opened a large municipal plant in the heart of the city for supplying arc aud incandescent lights to private consumers as well b to streets and public buildings. This enterprise has since had a great development. But of all Glasgow’s municipal experiences none is so interesting to other cities as that which relates to street railways. It is an expe rience which’ may well make American cities blush. Street railways are an American inven tion, and the first in Great Britain were constructed by American companies. Municipal operation of the street railways of Glasgow was en tered upon in 1894. A perfect working plant was then created, the city being unable to come to an agreement with the pre-exist ing private company as to the purchase of its plant. Car-build ing and repair shops, and oth er adjuncts to a complete and eco nomical organization were estab lished. Much disappointment was expressed because it was not found expedient to mark the municipali zation of the service by the intro duction of improved mechanical motive power in place of horses, but it was safest to begin with horse traction. It was decid ed to divide the lines into half mile stages, and to charge a half penny for each stage. Glasgow is exceedingly compact, aud the bulk of the patronage of the street rail ways comes from passengers rid ing less than a mile. Later it was found advisable to fix certain long penny runs, especially for work ingmen. The drivers and conductors of the private company had been kept at their posts for long hours, often not less than fourteen —twelve being the minimum The munic ipal management makes a ten hour day, and has fixed a satisfactory schedule of wages. Provision was made for the electric lighting of the cars and in every detail it was determined to give Glasgow, under municipal operation, the best sur face transit system in Great Brit ain—and so it has become Further, Glasgow owns and con trols a great central fruit and pro duce market, in which practically all the commission and wholesale business is carried on, and above which is a very large public hall, let by the authorities for concerts and various gatherings. It aso carries on a cattle market, the pub lic slaughter houses and the yards and abattoirs at the docks for for eign cattle. In a central locality the author ities Have a tract of twenty acres, occupied with a great roofed live stock market, having accommoda tions for many thousands of ani mals. The ‘’dead meat” market was established in 1876, when American dressed beef began to arrive in large quantities The con trol of slaughter houses and of meat, fish aud produce marts by the municipal authorities is deem ed a point of great advantage also for the public health. The city has market property valued at $1,200,000, not including the dock, cattle yards and abat tiors, from all of which it draws a good revenue. The groatness of Glasgow is due more than anything else to its mu nicipal energy. Last, though cer tainly uot least, as a proof of that energy, the Clyde Navigating Trust should be mentioned. The deepening of the River Clyde, th* management of the harbor, the service of ferries and harbor steamers are all municipal enter prises. Home, Sweet Home. There is no patriotism that is not love of home and country—and no man can trulyl ove a country in which he has no home. A man with no permanent foothold, is on ly an inhabitant of the world, a wanderer looking for a place to set tle—ready to go to South America, if it offers him a home, or equally ready to go to Africa, having no in terest but to take care of himself, caring naught for boundaries of states, ami protecting himself on ly to keep out of jail. All govern ments are foreign imtitutious to him, all homes only places where he cau see how other men live. But the yearning for home is in every civilized man’s heart and brain. He wants a place to rest his head where there is no rent to pay. He will go to the great Brit ish Northwest as a hunter aud trap per, lacing all dangers and privat ions that he may lay up enough to buy a home in some delightful spot which his imagination pictures as paradise. The roughest sailor that ever weathered the blast has sweet dreams of the time when he shall own a bttl9 home in sight apd hearing of the surf that beats up on tne shore, The soldier thinks of home as he goes into battle and prays that he may be spared—to re turn home. All guideboards point home for somebody. Every good effort in the world is to win a home, or make one better. Association does not make a home. Let the unfortute young man wander back to thejspot w'here he was born—the place that was once home, bis feeling is one of sadness, not of joy. He cannot bear to think of his habpy, thought less childhood days, the father and mother dead, and brothers and sis ters scattered. Let him go to the home of his more successfull broth er—the brother’6 very happiness is reproach to him. and impels him onward —toward home Laughter of childhood mocks him, The dis play of wealth enrages or dis courages him. Tossed here and there, if success does not meet him soon, he may come to think that the whole world is against him, aud become ail outlaw. As long as the hope of home sustains him he will remain upright —but the prop removed, he cares for noth ing. There can be no good represen tative government without homes and families. Every fireside is a beacon of liberty and freedom. When the millennium dawns no man, woman or child will be wandering without a home. The object of legislation should be to enable all men to own homes. Eyery outcast is either against society,’ or indifferent to it* Homes for the homeless is the highest object of patriotism—Ex change. The Cow pea. Correspondence of the Progressive Farmer. Eor many years the cow pea has been used by our best farmers in the South to renovate the soil, of course the story to them is old. but there are so many new farmers coming on each year, and so many who have to have “line upon line and precept upon precept,” that it seems necessary to tell often of the benefits to be derived from the cow pea. Out Northern farmers are wak ing up to the advantage to be gain ed by planting this valuable crop though the seed have to be import ed from the South each year. The pea crop is valuable to the farmers in three ways. 1 It is one of the best of feeds either cut as hay, or allowed to mature and the seeds ns a d for feed. It is very rich in nitrogen a>'d in fact is rich in all the nutrients. Cut just at the proper time and nicely cured it makes almost a per fect food. 1 have seen mules doing hard plowing kept in splndid condition fed on nothing but pea vine hay, The peas ground lip into meal make a most excellent food for milch cows when feed in connect ion with other food not so concen trated. To be convinced that it is one of cur best feeds, one needs but to try it. 2 The mechanical effect of a pea cr ip on the soil is very valuable. No crop loosens up the soil and makes it soporous and light as the pea crop sowed broadcast. There is a dense mat of roots that fill the soil and wtie i they rot they leave the soil a perfect network of little channels or canals. These allow water to soak in the soil freely aud serve to dram the soil by causing the water to sink down and pass out through the subsoil, which of course is the ideal condition for many rea sons. It net only aids in drainage, but in the working the soil the next season. Every one knows who has worked a crop after peas that the soil is in the best possible condit ion. 3 The chsmical effection the soil for the succeeding crops is unsur passed. Whether to cut the crop, or turn it under is a question that will have to be decided by each indi vidual farmer; and he will of course be governed by the richness of the soil, what crop he wishes to follew the peas, and by the value of hay in his section, and amount of stock on hand. To illustrate: If the farmer has 110 stock and could get but little for the hay if cut aud sold, then it would pay to turn the crop un der, but if ne has stock thst could furnish a home market for his hay, then it would pay and pay will to cut and feed them. If the land is very thin and quite a distance from the barn, it might pay then to leave the peas on the land. My advic®, however, is to cut and feed if possible, as we then get a double benefit. If sowed for hay, they should be put in broadcast, if for seed then the best results are obtained from sowing thick in drills about three feet apart and cultivating. Sow two bushels per acre in broadcast and one peck if in drills. As to the value of the pea crop from a chemical standpoint, or as food for the succeeding crop, it cannot be sur passed. That it is one of the best nitrogen gatherers can be proven by looking on the roots of a good healthy viue. Hundreds of tubercles will be seen and upon examination by a microscope these will be found to be the habitation of myriads of colonies of bacteria that possess the peculiar faculty fo taking up free nitrogen aud storing 111 up as plant food. This of course is readily available for the next crop, matters not what that next crop may be. The rest of the plant is very rich in the three elements usually con tained in a fertilizer—nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash. It is so rich in nitrogen that no good loamy soil, that element is usually left out of the fertilizer that is applied to that soil next year, especially as it costs more per pound than the other two com bined. So where a pea crop has been turned under, or even where a good pea stubble has been turned under, it will be economy to simply use a phosphorus and potash fertilizer. This formula I would suggest about two parts of phosphorus to two parts of potash: Say 400 pounds of acid phosphate and 200 pounds kainit per acre. Th ; s mixture used on our ordi nary crops after a good pea crop will be found very beneficial. Put in plenty of phosphorous aud pot ash and the previous pea crop will do the rest. My favorite varieties are the Black or Stock pea, Unknown, Clay, Speckle or Whippoorwill. Try a crop one time and you will continue to grow the best of food and finest of land renovators, B, Irby. Money. Money moves the world, and pays for a lot of bad whisky, It can pervert the truth and knock reason off the perch in the fourth round. ‘‘Money makes the mare go,” and she is going so dadgastod cheap now that canned horse meat is a close second to “embalmed beef,” and will likely out ail bo logna sausage iu which you can hear the dog b rk, or that comes from Chicago. For money man will work, worry, sweat, bleed and lie. It is the loadstone of activity, the north star of energy, the acme of man’s highest ambition. Most people want a part of it and a few want it all. Money getting is a virtue and a crime. With it is blended prayers, prevarications and pledges; tears, tyranny and tribulation ; lies, lamentations aud loathing; poverty, peevishness and parasites, misers, misery and meanness; blood, bliss and blud geons ; hell, heaven and happiness; sedition, salvation aud suicide, brain, brawn and boodle; death, debt and despair. Money is some people’s Gud which they worship with a devotion and sacrifice that puts the fanaticism of the Hindoo iu the shade. Yet, when we are called upon to shuffle off this mortal coil it is but dross and rises up like Bauquo’s ghost to accuse us of lost opportunities— opportunities wherein we might have added to the world’s store of usefulness and happiness.—W. S. Morgan.—Buzz Saw, NO. 16.