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Show . - ? -i m r9 .... THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH. UTAH Farm Iopics Build Huge Plants and Power Dams to Supply 2 Billion Pounds Aluminum for U. S. Defense CONTROL WEEDS DURING THE FALL i (Released by Western Newspaper Union.) ! WE, THE CONSUMERS, ' PAT THE TAX cal, OUR LEGISLATIVE bodies -lostate and national would have us the Toms, Dicks and Harrys of Check Pest Growth Now; Save Spring Trouble. By JAMES W. DAYTON ALUMINUM (Agricultural Agent at Large, Massachusetts State College.) s , ) us f t t, t In the spring people talk about weeds as well as about the weather, only they do something about the weeds. But in the fall, weeds are overlooked. They are often accepted as part of the scenery and nothing much is done about them. In fact, they are not always even talked about. But the late summer and the fall is really the time to save a lot of future trouble. For that time of year annual weeds are forming thousands of seeds and laying the foundations for next years abundance. Perennial weeds are busy storing up food in their roots for good, strong growth next spring. The simplest thing to do about these fall weeds is to see that they never ripen seeds. Mow them, or pull them before the seeds are ripe. It is usually best to rake them up and destroy them after they are cut, for weed seeds will ripen after the plant is killed. They put their last resources into preparing for the coming generation. The mowing machine, the scythe, or just a plain knife may be used all depending upon the size of the job; but dont forget fence comers and the patches of waste land. These may be more expensive areas than you might suspect if they spread weeds over the rest of the farm, and this is the time of year to cut down their costs. Encourage the weed seeds to sprout in the land to be seeded this fall. Then harrow them up at intervals before seeding time comes around. Soon all the weed seeds in the surface soil will have sprouted, and if, when grass and clover are seeded, care is taken not to bring to the surface new soil with additional weed seeds, the crop next year should be exceptionally clean. Fall plowing is often a help in killing perennial weeds such as witch grass and other tough customers. If weed roots can be exposed to the cold and drying of winter winds, the plants will have a hard time starting in the spring. harHarrowing with a spring-toot- h row to bring these roots to the surface is often a help. Taking care of weeds in the fall will make that spring weeding job much less arduous. In the long run, time spent fighting weeds at this time of year will do more good than it will in the spring. And almost equally important, fall weed control makes the whole place neat and attractive and supplies a Good Farmer label that no passerby can miss. w Can Control Gullies By Eliminating Cause r i ! J n i i ( i t f Keeping water out of gullies is a sure way of controlling them, and this can be done by terracing, explains R. C. Hay, extension agricultural engineer of the University of Illinois college of The approaching agriculture. slack season after harvest is a good time of the year to do terracing work. Gullies on cultivated slopes can be starved and eventually eliminated by terracing. The terraces not only slow up and divert runoff water from gullies but also materially reduce sheet erosion losses. Farmers experiences and experiments conducted under the supervision of farm advisers and the college of agriculture show that terraced fields lose only as much soil about as erosion by comparable unterraced fields. R. C. Hay explains that water diverted from fields must be handled with care or the formation of gullies at the outlets may result. one-seven- th 9 ) t Livestock men who are finding themselves short on pasture in late summer and faU might well lay plans now for better protection against shortages next year. W. H. Peters, chief of the animal husbandry division. University farm, Str Paul, urges rotation grazing of permanent pasture. For alternate grazing Peters advises fencing off a pasture into two fields and running the stock into one for two weeks and into the other for a like period. This will result in giving less strain on pasture plants. . X i V ) J i for Notional Dofonro Souxito Minot or Fioldt Alumina Mont 1,2. Alcoa 3. Roynoldr A Aluminum Co. of Canada Aluminum Mant iv -- ?. Vioi 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Alcoa 6. Roynoldr 7. Roynoldr (Fall 1941) fropriid Govt. Mora 8, 10, 11. Op. by Alcoa 9. Op. by Roynoldr 12. Op. by Bohn Co. 13. Op. by Union Carb 14. Op. by Olin Corp. Canadian Plant 13. Aluminum Co. of Canada (Sollt to U. S.) Electric Power Generating Facilitio i 1940. William Knudsen, director-generof OPM estimates the V. S. will need an annual production of 1,600 million pounds of aluminum for national defense. Map shows where bulk will be produced. Plants indicated by pouring ladle symbol. Nos. 1 to 5 are now producing at combined rate of 635 million pounds, by middle of 1942 will reach 720 million. Plant 6 produces 40 million pounds, and Plant 7 (nearing completion ) 60 million. Proposed government plants will produce in millions of pounds when completed: (8) 150, (9) 100, (10) 100, (11) 90, (12) 70, (13) 60 and (14) 30. Part of Canada (15) production has been contracted for by ( f United States. , al will add further tonnage. The pots and pans collected in the recent drive, for instance, cannot be used for making bombers but they might be remelted and used to make army field kitchen equipment or to quiet steel, thus freeing other aluminum for airplanes. The steel industry, which burns up one-hapound to five or six pounds of aluminum in the making of each ton of steel, may well consume 100,000,000 pounds next year. Aluminum, paradoxically, is the most plentiful of all the metallic elements known to man. It is in the clay under our feet, in the rocks high on a nearby hill, in the water we swim in and often in the very food we eat. Aluminum is never found in the native state, as iron, copper and gold are; it is always locked tight in chemical combination with other elements. Napoleon III, awake to Special to Western Newspaper Union . WASHINGTON, D. C. What has been happening throughout the United States during the last few weeks would have constituted a phenomenon anywhere but in a democracy. From Sauk Center to gay Broadway a fellow could take his girl to the swellest dance in town with no more capital than a couple of battered pots and pans. In Oklahoma City, solid citizens drove downtown to hurl their skittles and double boilers at a target painted on the posterior of an effigy Hitler, then let them lie there for Uncle Sam to pick up. In Harrison, N. Y., a dog bit a girl scout soliciting old aluminum from house to house; he was a German police dog, of course. Gypsy Rose Lee, exhibiting rare form (sic), contributed a pan dance. And more than 1,000,000 Americans did their bit in the drive to collect scrap aluminum for national defense. In a few short months the threat of Hitlerisnfhad brought the light, silvery metal off the kitchen ranges of the nation and dumped it all over the front page. For just as World War I has been described as a war of steel, World War II was rapidly developing into a war of aluminum. $ World War I was a static and sur- face affair, fought from fixed positions. World War II is charactermovements of ized by lightning-lik- e mechanized fighting forces. highly rule the land, tanks and Airplanes while airplanes and swift, modern battle fleets fight the Battle of the Atlantic. Eighty to 90 per cent of todays military airplane is aluminum, for alloys of the metal, as strong as d structural steel, are only use the tanks Modern as heavy. aluminum for gun platforms, interior fittings and wherever else it can be employed efficiently to save weight and gain maneuverability. Todays battleship uses more than a million pounds several times as much as the whole city of New York rounded up in the drive. Restricted Use. This explains why you can no longer obtain aluminum for egg poachers, for refrigerator trays, for streamlined trains, hair curlers, bridge girders or chewing gum wrappers. Gone to defend its country, aluminum is needed in quantities the like of which peacetime America never imagined, much less one-thir- pot-and-p- consumed. The United States annual miliof aluminum requirements tary when the defense program gets into full production, have been estimated at from 1,200,000,000 pounds to 2,000,000,000 pounds a year and up. Suppose we take 1,600,000,000 pounds the estimate of William Knudsen, of OPM as a fair director-generis twice as much That average. aluminum as the entire world produced only five years ago. It is roughly equal to the entire world al production of Proper Planning Helps Avoid Pasture Shortage America believe the greater portion of the taxes they levy is collect--' ed from the corporations. If we believed that we would not object so much to extravagance in government operation. In a factual survey of 165 corporations, made by the American Federation of Investors, It was found that these corporations had paid a total of $2,565,356,532 for taxes in 1940, notwithstanding the gigantic war machines that were built. In terms more familiar to all of us, it is more than twice as much aluminum as this country has consumed in all its history for cooking utensils and electric refrigerators combined. What is being done to meet this challenge? A great deal some of it by private enterprise, some of it by the government, some by the two working together. The Aluminum Company of Amersince it was the only Alcoa ica producer of virgin (new) aluminum in the United States until this year, was first to get under way with defense expansion. What it has done lf the advantage of light aluminum equipment would give him is summed up in the recent report cavalry over his enemies, offered a fortune of the house military affairs comto the French scientist who could mittee on defense progress: find a cheap way of producing the Aluminum Price Decline. metal, which then cost $545 a pound. In 1938 this company finished the But it was not until 1886 that an year with an inventory of a stock of American youth, Charles Martin aluminum equal to the normal re- Hall, unlocked the secret and paved quirements for a year. As of the the way for aluminum at its present date of April 3, 1939, congress had price of 17 cents. Halls process, still the basis of authorized the navy to build 3,000 a aluminum industry, makes use Such the the and 6,000. army planes program required no expansion of production facilities, inasmuch as a was on years supply of the metal1938 this hand. However, late in company inaugurated a program with additions since made to it calling for the capital expenditure of over $200,000,000. Instead of an increase in the price of aluminum, as there has been in practically all strategic and critical materials, in some instances as high as 200 per cent, there has been a decline in the price of approximately 14 per cent. All the testimony given before this committee was to the effect that the Aluminum Company of America had had given 100 per cent not only used its own money for expansion, but of its own initiative took steps to treble its production. Alcoa by July, 1942, will be producing 725,000,000 pounds annually. Seven New Plants. Aided by RFC loans totaling some Metals $35,000,000, the Reynolds Forging an aluminum propeller company, long a fabricator of alublank. Defense aircraft will require minum, this year entered the business of making the metal. At many times the number of alumiAla., one of its two plants num forgings the U. S. consumes is already in operation, and at Longin peacetime. view, Wash., another is nearing Together they will of an electrolytic furnace. This completion. make 100,000,000 pounds a year. large rectangular pot is filled with OPM is reported to have recomcryolite, the stone like ice, found mended to the war department the only in far-oGreenland, but manufactured synthetically in large quanconstruction of seven new government plants. According to the re- tities here. Powerful electric curports, these would be run by private rent is introduced into the cryolite, companies, three by Alcoa, one by passes through it, heating it to a molten mass, and leaves through the Bohn Aluminum and Brass corporaCarUnion one and Carbide lining of the pot. A white subtion, by stance like powdered sugar, called bon, and one by the Olin corporaalumina (which is merely alumition. These plants would add pounds a year. The Metals num chemically combined with oxyReserve company, a government gen), is dissolved in the molten corporation, has contracted with the cryolite. The electric current deAluminum Company of Canada to composes the alumina, the oxygen obtain about 750,000,000 pounds, passing off as gas and the then 187,000,000 to be delivered during molten aluminum, heavier than the cryolite, sinking to the bottom of the Secondary, or reclaimed, alumi- pot. The aluminum is then tapped num (for the metal can in some into ladles and poured into ingot at ways be used over and over again) intervals. i ! Lis-terhi- ll, ff 600,-000,0- 00 1942-194- 4. The tax collector took that amount out of the pockets of the 165 corporations. These corporations in turn took it out of the pockets of the ultimate consumers, and we paid it in the form of an increased price for the merchandise and services we purchased. The corporations had to pass along the tax collectors bill if they were to continue in business and provide jobs for their 3,490,801 employees. They could not have taken it from their 5,888,689 stockholders, the people who supplied the money to create the 3,490,801 jobs, for the total dividends paid were only $1,247,358,722, or less than the amount of the tax collectors bill. Had they attempted to take it out of the pockets of their employees, it would have meant taking from each one an average of $735. The only practical, or possible way was to get it back from the consumers the Toms, Dicks and Harrys by including it in the price of their merchandise, and we, in the end, paid all of it, and then some. The then some was the taxes paid by the wholesale jobber and the retailer. They, too, if they were to remain in business, had to pass on to the consumer the amount the tax collector took from them, and we paid it. Such are a large part of the hidden taxes we pay. Our law makers tried to cover them up, and they succeeded for a time, at least with a percentage of the people. They realize that to levy a direct tax on the consumer of an amount equal to the indirect tax he now pays would arouse a protest expressed through the ballot box. They are trying to fool all of the people all of the time, but will find it will not continue to work. Either in the form of direct or indirect taxes, the consumer is today paying close to 3 cents to the tax collector out of each dollar of He is working for his income. d of his government nearly working time. The taxes of those 165 corporations for 1940 amounted to $585,518,-63- 4 more than in 1939. There will be a tremendous jump in 1941, under the new tax law, and again we, the consumers, will pay it alL cne-ha- lf one-thir- ADVERTISING VALUES FOR RURAL MERCHANT THE LARGE STORES of every metropolitan center demonstrate every day the value of intelligently used newspaper advertising space. To insure that intelligent use, these stores employ the best expert advertising talent available. They pay large salaries to advertising managers because they know the how," when and what of merchandising advertising. These advertising experts cannot, if they would, hide their talents. They must display them each day and in each issue of the newspapers in which they buy space. Every day they offer a lesson in effective merchandising advertising. study of the copy By a they produce, rural merchants can when and learn the how, what of effective advertising. If, and when, the lessons are applied to their own merchandising problems, the rural stores will find how much effective newspaper advertising will do in the development of patronage. adverA study of the tising of the large city stores will show the rural merchant the how of advertising and when to adSuch a study will vertise what. make of the rural merchant an advertising expert day-to-da- y home-tow- n day-to-d- ay RAISE WHAT WE CONSUME w. C. WEBBER, in the Northeast Johnson County Herald at Overland Park, Kansas, proposes that America encourage the raising of all agricultural products we consume as a solution of our farm problem. If all of Americas rural newspapers would support the plan, it would provide a solution for the American farm problem. |