Southern world : journal of industry for the farm, home and workshop. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1882-18??, May 15, 1882, Image 6

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

6 Mnlphurle Aeld and ita luniketnH. Sulphuric acid is employed in the arts and manufactures for a large number of pur poses. The manufacture of it is an exten sive Industry, immense quantities of it be ing consumed in the manufacture of soda, In that of bleaching powder, in calico print ing and dyeing, and in most chemical oper ations, both in the manufactory and labora tory. It is to chemistry wbat iron is to the mechanical world. It is used in making nitric, hydrochloric, sulphurous, carbonic, tartaric, citric, phosphoric, stearic, oleic and palmitic acids. It is called into requi sition in making super-phosphates, sulpnuto of ammonia, alum, sulphates of iron and copper, in paraiDne nnd petroleum refining, silver refining, manufacture of garaacine, garanceaux and other madder prepara tions, glucose from starch, and to dissolve in digo. Sulphuric acid is a dense, colorless, oily liquid, without smell, and of an intensely acid taste and reaction. It has a powerfully caustic action and chars and destroys or ganic matter from its strong afllfiity for water. Oil of Vitriol, or the protohydrate is not the only hydrate of sulphuric acid. Three others are known to exist. When the fuming oil of vitriol of Nord* hausen is ex}>osed to a low temperature a white crystalline substance separates which is a hydrate containing half ns much water as the common liquid acid. Sulphuric acid in its free state is a very rare natural pro duct; although in combination with bases, it is common to the animal and vegetable, and abundant in the inorganic kingdoms. The only case in which is known to occur free are in certain American rivers, especial ly the Uio Vinagre and some lakes in Ten- nesssee and Java. Sulphuric acid is made from sulphur and pyrites—the first being the most extensively used. The only establishment mnking sulphuric acid from pyrites that we know of is located in DeKalb county, A'A miles from Atlanta. Thu upiKirutus for manufacturing this acid is composed of four parts. I The furnuce, where by combustion of pyrites sulphurous acid is formed; this car rying witli it nitrous vapors prepured in burners, escapes from the furnace by a tube. 2. An upparutus tilled with coke through which the sulphuric and nitric acids perco late. 3. leaden chambers wherein under a high pressure of stcutu sulphuric acid is formed. 4. (iuy-Iaissac's condenser filled with coke through which sulphuric acid percolates the aim being to take up the nitric and hy- ponitric acids from the gases which flow into tlie last chamber previously to being discharged. The pyrites arc calcined in peculiarly con structed kilns built with fire bars, the spaces between being adjusted with a key and the admission of the air required for combus tion regulated with great nicety. The best oven for this purpose was invented in 1864 by Gerstenhofeir. The principle of this oven is that the pyrites is made to fall through and meet the column of heated air support ing the combustion. In order to prolong the fall of the pyrites (broken up fine) terraces or banks are built at intevals in the shafts. The broken pyrites fall through the fun nels provided with grooved rollers to pulver ise it, on to the banksfrom one terrace to an other. The furnace haviug been made pre viously red hot, the ore ignites and burns off aided by a moderate blast. The acid formed is discharged by channels into acid cham bers. Sometimes it is first conveyed to an ante-room where the dust of the pyrites mechanically mixed with the gases is de posited. Selenium and thallium are found in the Hue dust of pyrites burners. The use of leaden chambers is due to an Englishman. The present mode was in vented by acalico printer in Rouen in 1774 and improved by the celebrated Chaptail. As soon as the acid in the leaden chambers has acquired a speclfio gravity sufficient it runs off into a reservoir and is then ready for use. The Sulphurio Add works in DeKalb county, Georgia is one of the great enter prises of the day. The building is 300 feet long, 00 feet wide and two stories high. The lead chambers are said to be the largest in the United States. The capacity of the works is 40000 pounds of acid per day for which they find a ready market In addition to this they have a patent dryer for drying phosphate rocks, and a mill THE SOUTHERN WORLD, MAY 16,1882. for grinding the rocks with a capacity of 10,000 to 20,000 tons per annum. The pyrites is brought from a mine in Harralsou county, Georgia, near the line of the Georgia Pacific railway. Prom 20 tp 30 tons per day are mined. After the pyrites is burned in the furnace the refuse is roast ed and carried into vats for leaching, and the copper and silver extracted by conden sation on iron bars. The residue (iron ore) is used at rolling mills. These works run day and night from Christmas to Christmas. They are erected near the center of a lot of 85 acres, covering a number of acres with their buildings. They have asliip load of Kainetfor mixing with acid phosphates. Some $200,000 is invested in these works by northern capitalists. Pendleton's Guano Works are located on one side and Col. G. W. Scott’s Phosphate Works on the other— both extensive enterprises. A Cotton Seed Oil Mill is being erected on the same lot. The combined capital in these four enter prises will aggregate about $500,000, and over 300 hands will find employment at them. They are quite an addition to the industrial and agricultural interests of thiji section, Mouth Carolina Cotton Hills. The annual report of H. H. Hickman, President of the Grnniteville (S. C.,) Manu facturing Company gives a fine exhibit of the results of the mills at Graniteville and Vauclause: Gross profitsnt Graniteville . $142,344.04 Expenditures .... 36,055.20 Net profits . 100,280.65 Gross profit of Vauclause . 77,106.00 Expenditures .... 4,117.63 Net profits 73,040.27 Muking a total of net profits . $170,338.02 Of this $54,000.00 was paid out as dividends. The amount placed to profit and loss, March 1st, 1882 was $203,882.13. Graniteville mill produced during the year: Lbs. Yds. 4-4 Sheeting 1,480.027 4,470,000 7-8 Shirting 750,206 2,767,200 7-8 Drilling 009,587 2,671,077 3-4 Shirting 300,122 1,390,000 Total 3,458,002 11,317,177 The cotton consumed during the year was 4,064,25!) pounds, or about 0,032 bales of 450 pounds average weight. Vaucluse Mill turned ont the following aggregate quantity of cloth: Of all styles, 1,542,080 pounds—5,043,873 yards. Consum ing in the process 1,840.150 pounds of cotton or about 4,000 commercial bales. At Graniteville 5 dwelling houses and one lumber house, and at Vaucluse 8 dwelling houses and one lumber house, were built. Mr. Hickman has been handling the work ings of the Graniteville factory for 15 years with remarkable ability and gratifying suc cess. His management is wise and prudent, and Northern manufacturers pronounce it the finest mill in the country. He is a large- hearted, liberal minded man. That our readers may see that he exhibits a proper regard not only for the interest of the Com pany, but for the employees, we make the following extract from his able report: "During the four years, beginning March 1st, 1878, and ending with February 28th, of the current year, the Graniteville Mil) was closed forty-five work-days, by reason of protracted drouths and low water: and, during much of the time when it run, the speed was too low to develop its full capac ity. To give you an adequate idea of the value of the time lost, to say nothing of the slow speed, I will state that the production of the mills during the four years would have exceeded the actual production by 482,070 pounds of cloth, or 1,604,400 yards, and your gross profits would have been greater by $24,477.40 estimating the full running time at 312 days in each year. In addition to this, the wages and salaries of the non-producers of the employes, whose duties and labors are not interrupted by the stopping of the mill, add very considerably to the cost of the goods produced—how much it would be very difficult to ascertain defi nitely. There Is another important matter worthy of very serious consideration. The produc ing classes of your employes—the carders, the spinners, the spoolers, the warpers, the weavers and the like—whose labors and wages stop with every stopping of the mill, can 111 afford to endure this loss of time; for with them “time is money” in the most literal meaning of the word. Idleness is demoralising, disorganising in its influence upon some of them, as well as upon others not similarly employed, and is calculated to make them discontented, and ' to incline the beat and most industrious of them to seek more constant employment elsewhere. Their patient endurance in the past is indeed wonderful, and worthy of the highest commendation; and we owe it to them, and the right, not to tax it too heavily. These and other reflections prompted me to take counsel with experts, that some plan might be devised by which the very prob able recurrence of protracted drouth and low water should not so seriously affect the running of your mill in the future, as they have done in the past four years. After consulting with Mr. Hill, of Columbus, Gs., and Mr. Howard, your Superintendent, I de cided to adopt the following scheme: To. attach to the mill a steam engine of three hundred horse power to supplement your water power in times of protracted drouth; to build substantial and secure head gates at the mouth of the canal os safeguards against sudden freshets; to deepen the canal so that more water may be drawn out of the pond when it shall be needed; and to sub stitute iron tubes for the wooden ones now in use, which are very much decayed, are unsafe, and waste a great quantity of water in its flow through them from the canal to the water wheels. With the consent of your Road of Directors, I at once proceeded to put this plan into execution, and have made considerable progress in the work, as you may see. I hope to have the work completed in time for any exigency that may arise next summer. I shall also supplement the water power at Vaucluse with asteam engine of one hun dred horse power, for that mill likewise suffered serious falling away in its produc tion and profits by reason of low water and slow speed.” At the annual meeting of the stockholders of the Sibley Mill at Augusta, Georgia, Pres ident W. C. Sibley, reported: "On the 22d February last water was sup plied to the wheels for the first time, and the machinery has been gradually started up since. We now have in operation 14.- 102 spindles and 252 looms. Thus far oper atives have come to us as fast as we needed them. We shall require at least thirty now tenement houses and I would recommend that they be built; also, that the capital stock be raised $100,000—making it $1,000- 000; also, that the Directors bo authorized to issue the company’s bonds to the extent of $100,000. I have received from parties who built our present machinery bids for enough machinery to increase our number of spindles to 37,600, and find that it would cost not qti' to $350,000. Constructive account of the mill $921,203.75. The March pay roll was $5,670.33; total assets, $1,114,510.04; cap ital stock, $900,000. Tub Roswell (Ga.) Cotton factory lias de clared a four per cent dividend out of their earnings for six months. They will erect a new cotton mill with 5,000 spindles. R. J, Tkammkll has erected a large wagon factory in Opelika. Ala. Cultivating the Black Walnut. A paper read before tbe Indiana State Board of Ag riculture, January Sth 1682 by W. II. Kagan, secre tary Indiana Horticultural Society and furnished by the author to the Southern World. th* BLACK walnut (Juglandt Nigra.) On page 450 Report of the Department of Agriculture for 1870, occurs the follow ing statement: “In January, I860, there was brought to New York from the West a walnut tree, seventy feet lon& containing 4,600 feet, board measure, which when cut Into veneers, thirty to the inch, would be equal to 138,000 feet, worth at 20 cents per foot $27,000. Tbe estimated cost of cut ting, cartlug and storing for sale, was $700.” And again, though I cannot give the author of this item: “Aman in Wisconsin planted a piece of land with black walnut., 23 years ago. The land flooded spring and summer and was unfit for ordinary cultivation. The trees are now from 16 to 18 inches in diame ter and have been sold for $27,000.” As we are all aware, these are exceptional cases, but that walnut lumber now commands from $75 to $100 per thousand feet in this /City, and that too, located as it is right in the midst of 'former groves of which any country might have been proud, is a fact beyond controversy. But this noble forest it gone, and we, whose immediate ancestors, a stalwart band of pioneers, tolled long and faithfully to remove the almost worthless cumberera of the ground, are to-day care fully engaged in gathering up the once ac cursed stumps for their commercial value. Not only this, but I to-day stand before this association of farmers, many of whom like the speaker, have spent wearv days in con tributing to the destruction of these mon- archs of the forest, without one word of apology for advocating the claims of this noble tree, as pre-eminently the most worthy variety for artificial groves and timber belts. Although addressing myself to men, resident of a once densely forest-covered re gion, whose business for half a century has been the destruction of our noble forest, I shall reiterate tbe warning, '‘Woodman spare the tree,” and with it urge upon you the propriety of devoting a few spare acres to the cultivation of a walnut grove. I know ■ it has been sneerlngly said by our prairie neighbors on the West, that they could raise corn and have It manufactured into whisky and glucose, for which they could barter us Hoosiers out of our timbers, cheaper than they could raise it. However true this may have been in the past, I am satisfied that it cannot long be practiced, unless we defeat "prohibition,” or plant groves at an early day, since we are so rapidly learning the true value of our timber. Before present ing my subject in detail, I will briefly al lude to the fact that horticulturists, rather than agriculturists, have been first to ad vocate the claims of artificial forestry. This is but natural, since their occupation leads them directly to this result, the propaga tion and care of young trees being to them a source of revenue, and in view of the fact that their tender and precious crops are more susceptible of unfavorable influences by climatic changes incident to the removal, or partial absence of forests and groves. But after all, the farmer has the greater real interest in this subject. In the first place he has the broad acres on which to grow tim ber; he too, is greatly interested in the pre servation of moisture and the amelioration of climate incident to the culture of tim ber; his herds and flocks receive comforting shelter, both winter and summer from his groves, while fuel and timber for his own comfort and proflt result therefrom. Hav ing thus briefly argued a few of the points of interest to the agriculturist, in the sub ject in hand, and assuring you that this is a work that must be begun in anticipation of a period of absolute necessity, if we would provide against a timber famine in the near future, I will proceed to lay before you a few of the many arguments in favor qf the black walnut, which in ray judgment, gives it pre-eminence over ull other varieties. In point of quality, as relates to the actual value of the timber, I could not add to the testimonials quoted at tho head of this paper. It is doubtful whether any tree of any variety bos proven of rnoro value than the one cited, and the quality of the timber is such that no fickle whim of fashion can seriously depreciate its value. It is true, black walnut Is not celebrated on account of its durability when brought in contact with frequent cliangos from a condition of dryness to moisture, and hence is not so val uable for posts and cross ties as many other species but for other purposes, from the fin est parlor decorations to the external finish of the roughest out-buildings, it stands without a peer. It Is indiginous to our soil and perfectly hardy, not requiring acclimation; it is com paratively free from the attacks of depre dating insects; it grows rapidly into a tree of noble proportions. In the economy of its nature, it gathers from the elements, and annually deposits through its decaying fo liage, bark, etc., a fund of wealth to the soil, that has, in Hoosier parlance conferred on it the title of “witness tree,” it being regarded as a “witness” to good soil. It bears at an early age, and annually thereaf ter, full crop of nuts, that even now, possess a commercial value, equalling if not excell ing tho average value of a grain crop, and this particular, if in no other, yielding a yearly income far above that of most if not all other trees that have been recommended for artificial forestry. BOW TO PLANT AND CULTIVATE. All nut-bearing trees are difficult to trans plant. This is due to the fact of their invar iably starting from the germ with a strong radical or tap root, which is apt to be seri ously cut back in digging. On this account nurserymen avoid the culture, and espec ially the recommendation of nut-bearing trees. One of the principal elements of popularity of the Catalpa Spedosa, and one no doubt which prompts many fabulous statements concerning its extreme durabil ity, is due to the ease of propagation, and facility and almost absolute certainty of success attending its transplanting. This has also given unmerited reputation and prominence to numerous other trees of far less value than the black walnut,, or even, the Catalpa Speciosa. But fortunately what would be an objection to the black walnut, when viewed from the nurseyman’s stand point, that of self interest, is really one of