USA > Missouri > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Missouri : past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Vol. I > Part 10
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While only one of Missouri's pipe factories makes a specialty of the wooden variety, two others turn them out as a side line. As each cob pipe required a stem, it is close enough to say that at least 30,000,000 stems were manufactured in the same period, not all of reed, but a good many of bone, some of amber and several millions of imitation amber and other substances.
The 1909 production of the factories, which have made re- turns, sold for $448,454, as compared with $431,810 for the year 1908. Early reports for 1910 indicate that the production for this year will be worth $475,000. These figures include the value, not alone of the cob pipes, but also of all wooden ones, the extra . stems and the cleaners. At retail these pipes sell for from five and ten cents up to fifty cents, according to the design, finish and material the stem is made of.
If there are any corn cob pipe factories outside of Missouri
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their production is so small that their State Labor Bureaus do not herald the fact to the world. Franklin county is in the center of the corn cob pipe industry of the world. Its output alone for 1909 consisted of 24,433,300 of "Missouri corn cobs," which is nearly as much as the whole state produced in 1908. In addition 1,881,484 extra stems and 55,872 wooden pipes came from there.
The process of converting a corn cob, rough and crude, as everyone knows it to be, into a highly finished and pretty "Mis- souri corn cob," with either a bone or amber mouth piece, worth from ten cents to a quarter of a dollar, is highly interesting, re- quiring much delicate and rapid handling, and many intricate and fast revolving machines. The workers are highly skilled, intelligent and so keen sighted that no damaged pipe bowl ever passes beyond each individual machine, regardless of the vast number turned out hourly. They enjoy the work and take great pride in producing a perfect pipe, realizing that the fame of the "Missouri corn cob" depends upon their quick, deft fingers. Time has made each so skillful that accidents seldom occur.
Each pipe goes through about a hundred operations and han- dlings before it is ready to be sent to the packing room, where the finishing touches, such as labeling, sorting and placing in pasteboard boxes, is done by young, neat damsels with rosy cheeks, flashing eyes and nimble fingers. All the machine work is done by male workers, each having his own little part to do. Some run machines which in the fraction of a second cut the cob into the first rough size; others operate borers which in a flash exca- vates the bowl; others have charge of the piece of mechanism which cuts the hole for the stem, and still others manipulate sand- ing, smoothing, plastering, staining and varnishing devices.
In all the seven factories, which reported for 1909, employed 301 male workers and fifty-two females, who drew in course of that year $137,327 in salaries and wages. The raw material and, supplies required to produce pipes worth $448,454 cost $199,981, most of which sum went to farmers for cobs, which were formerly considered valueless and either burned as fuel or used to fill 1 swamp lands.
Invested in grounds, buildings, machinery, tools, fixtures, etc., the seven factories reported $199,414, a gain in working capital of about $40,000 over 1908. There was paid out for rent, taxes
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and insurance $2,827 and for other miscellaneous purposes $59,- 410.
Missouri corn cob pipes are used the world over, being as famil- iar on the streets of the cities of Norway and Sweden, Australia, Germany, South Africa, New Zealand, not to mention England and Ireland, as they are in St. Louis, Kansas City, Chicago and other American metropolises.
SUNFLOWER SEED.
Millions of Pounds Wasted Annually in Missouri.
Millions of pounds of sunflower seeds are allowed to go to waste in Missouri annually, simply because it is not generally known that they can be used for food for men, as well as animals, and therefore have a commercial value. In the year 1909 about 400,000 pounds of the seeds were sent to market by Missouri's 114 counties, and that about $4,000 was realized by the sale of the same.
While originally a native of tropical America, the sunflower is now found growing more or less wild all over the cultivatable portions of the world, and especially in south and central Europe, seeds having been carried there from America by several six- teenth century rovers, who took a fancy to the large flower, both for its peculiar wild beauty and that it had a food value.
In Russia the sunflower seed is prepared and eaten just like Americans do peanuts. The poorer class often eat the seeds raw, the only drawback to this style of turning them into a palatable article being the difficulty of easily separating the kernel from the hull.
In Missouri the sunflower is found everywhere, growing in vacant city lots amid rubbish as well as in rich lands of the south- eastern section of the state and in the foothills of the Ozarks. Goats thrive on the plant, eating everything from the seeds and petals down to the coarse rough stalks and the roots. The seed is often used, mixed with other seeds as feed for poultry, and parrots especially enjoy this menu, forming a food which was a mainstay for them in the tropical regions. The early Indians of the land pounded the seed into a powder and made a bread of the same.
An oil, closely resembling olive oil, but, of course, inferior in
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quality, is made by pressing sunflower seeds. It is very palatable, easily digested, and has a high food value. In this respect it is said to be superior to our cottonseed oil, which is put to so many uses in domestic life and in art and science. In art, sunflower oil is used for paints, taking the place of linseed oil, and when prop- erly refined and prepared is almost as valuable.
The sunflower is full of the substances which make honey, and therefore is a valuable food for bees. The stalks and leaves and flower petals make excellent fodder for cattle. As a fuel the stalks and leaves have high value in sections where wood is scarce and not too great a degree of heat is required. An acre of sun- flowers will yield several cords of good fuel without considering the value of the seed. It is estimated that fifty bushels of seed can be grown on an acre of ground. A bushel of seed yields a gallon of oil, figuring that the oil is as valuable as the cotton- seed variety, which, in 1909, averaged about 40 cents, one acre of sunflower seed will produce oil worth $20, which means that the farmers' share would be about $12, and the manufacturer the remainder; out of which sums both would, of course, meet all their expenses.
As sunflowers can easily be grown in corners and in lands of little use for anything else, it would pay to produce more. The oil can be used like cottonseed oil, in the manufacture of oleo- , margarine and several other cooking preparations.
POP CORN YIELD.
Pop corn, the commodity which is responsible for much love making in rural sections and which has paved the way to many a true match, is plentifully grown in Missouri, more plentiful than is generally supposed to be the case. The pop corn crop of the 114 counties of the state is placed at 5,550,000 pounds for the year 1909. Probably only half of the production went to the market, but had all been sold, the farmers who raised it would have received $166,550 for the crop, figuring this tasty little article at an average of three cents a pound the year round. With half of the amount sent to market the sum of $83,250 was poured into the coffers of the farmers for another one of Missouri's many little side lines.
Pop corn can be and is grown in every county in Missouri, which has a corn production, but most farmers raise only enough
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for home use, many not realizing that there is a good and constant demand for this article the year round, with the market never lower than $1.00 a bushel, a figure which ordinary corn has not reached for many a year. Experts say that one can be raised as easily as the other.
POP CORN CULTURE.
One of the strictest rules in the culture of pop corn is the han- dling of the grain after it has been harvested. No time is allowed to elapse after the picking until it is safe in a roofed crib, espe- cially constructed for that use, for upon the thorough drying of the grain rests its grading and its popping qualities.
The cribs are of strips of wood, much narrower than those in the sides of an ordinary corn crib, in order that the air aper- tures may occur with greater frequency. A complete air circula- tion is established in many cribs by laying a line of loose drain pipes through the pop corn.
Many cribs are fitted with drying flues at intervals of about six feet, and various other means are taken to insure a complete drying of the crop. Each kernel or grain must dry throughout. Pop corn that is damp on one side or in the center, will not pop freely and perfectly.
Many farmers hold their pop corn until late in the winter for a higher price market.
Seed pop corn is worth five cents a pound. It usually takes five or six pounds of seed to an acre. A pop corn farm on the outskirts of a large city, if properly run, pays well.
MISSOURI'S EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM.
But few, if any, states in the Union possess a better system of public and private schools than are found in Missouri. The state is divided into 10,053 school districts. For the year ending June 30, 1909, the public schools cost the taxpayers $13,512,692 to educate the 1,005,092 children of school age. A recent law compels every child of sound body and mind from six to fourteen years of age to attend either a public or a private school during each school year. The territory of these school districts is so divided as to enable each child to attend school conveniently. The public school properties of the state are worth $42,531,765.
Missouri has the largest permanent interest-bearing school fund
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of any state in the Union. This fund on July 1st, 1909, amounted to $14,045,925.72, and it is being rapidly increased each year. .
There are over one hundred private colleges and many paro -; chial schools in the state, and these, combined with the five state normal institutions, the Missouri State University, and two private universities, have an enrollment each year of over 80,000 students, and the expense for maintaining these schools is more than $2,- 500,000 annually.
The state supports regularly five normal schools, a state uni- versity for the education of white inhabitants and the Lincoln Institute for the higher education of negroes. Washington Uni- versity, St. Louis University, William Jewell and Central Col- lege are the leading schools of their class west of the Mississippi river.
CHARITABLE AND PENAL INSTITUTIONS.
Missouri maintains many charitable institutions for the care of the afflicted. Asylums for the insane are located at St. Jo- seph, Fulton, Nevada and Farmington, and a colony for the feeble-minded at Marshall. A school for the deaf and dumb is found at Fulton, and a school for the blind at St Louis. A reform school for the boys is maintained at Boonville and another for the girls at Chillicothe. A home for the ex-Federal soldiers is located at St. James and another for the ex-Confederate soldiers at Higginsville. The state's penitentiary is at Jeffer- son City. Each county provides a suitable place, where the pau- pers may have a home and receive the comforts of life.
MISSOURI'S GOOD ROADS.
Every county in Missouri has some special feature or charac- teristic in its road work. The state is as diversified in road mate- rial as in climate, crops, or mineral productions. No one method or plan is adaptable in all places alike, and often the plans and methods must be varied over one county. In one section gravel construction is best, in other rock, and still others sand-clay or chert. A special feature in some counties is the well dragged earth road, while in others concrete or masonry in culverts or bridges may be pre-eminent.
It is necessary for the county highway engineer to study his field and choose the methods, plans and materials adaptable to
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the locality. The object of this publication is not only to give testimonials to the fact that Missouri is making headway-and highways-but to portray the diversity of available materials for road work.
Road building is making use of natural materials in such a manner as to produce the improved road. With such widely dis- tributed road materials as sand, clay, gumbo, chert, gravel and rock, Missouri can have as many good roads as she needs.
Missouri has 110,000 miles of public roads.
Missouri has 800 miles of rock road.
Missouri's roads would reach across the state 400 times.
The annual expenditure upon Missouri roads, bridges and cul- verts for 1908 was approximately two and three-quarter million dollars, distributed as follows: Road surface-rock, $300,000; gravel, $300,000; earth, $1,000,000; bridges, $800,000; culverts, $300,000. As much more was spent in 1909-10.
The cost of maintenance upon bridges is 17 per cent of the annual expenditure upon these structures, culverts 41 per cent. This difference in the percentage of the cost of maintenance repre- sents the difference in the methods of construction-the annual toll paid to the timber structure.
The Missouri legislature of 1907 voted about one million dol- lars to the roads-the war debt fund of $475,000 and $500,000 from the state revenue-and submitted a constitutional amend- ment to the voters for a 10 cent state road tax. Unfortunately, the $500,000 appropriation was never available, and the state tax was defeated at the polls by 24,700 votes. Had all this been obtainable, Missouri would now be ranking well in road work.
The constitutional amendment for an additional road tax of 25 cents on the $100 assessed valuation carried by about 20,- 000 votes.
Missouri has enough road mileage for 40 roads across the United States.
The state of Missouri has a large area in which the sand-gumbo method of road construction is adaptable. There are hundreds of miles of Mississippi and Missouri river bottom lands, and about 4,000 square miles of low gumbo and sand lands in one body in southeast Missouri, where good roads will help greatly toward placing these sections among the richest agricultural districts of the country.
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The road drag has done as much toward making good earth roads as any other one tool ever known. Every foot of earth road in Missouri should be under maintenance with the drag. The first public lecture ever made upon the drag for road purposes was at Chillicothe, Mo., December, 1901, by Mr. D. Ward King, under the direction of the Missouri State Board of Agriculture. This. was followed by lectures and demonstrations over the entire state.
Missouri has spent not less than $30,000,000 upon her roads alone.
Missouri has 4,000 miles of rock gravel and chert roads.
Missouri has 240 miles of bridging, enough to reach across the state.
Missouri has spent not less than $20,000,000 upon her bridges and culverts alone.
Missouri has 90,000 culverts (structures less than ten-foot clear span), not including small pipe openings.
The road work of the state would go forward in leaps and bounds under a definitely fixed policy of state aid.
A constitutional amendment for state aid to roads, authorizing a state levy of 5 cents on the $100 of assessed valuation, was voted upon in 1910.
Missouri roads reach every farm in the state. Does any other method of transportation ? The highway is more necessary than the railway, or the waterway.
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CHAPTER XI.
A TRIBUTE TO MISSOURI.
By HARVEY W. ISBELL.
Dry details are dull; statistics are entirely too prosaic to be inviting, and a solemn marshaling of facts and figures, to prove that which is almost as self-evident as an axiom in mathematics, would be extremely tedious. I take it, therefore, that in the assignment of this subject, argument is not needed to prove that Missouri is a great state-that her institutions are the best known to a civilized age, or that her resources are beyond the compu- tation of man.
Every intelligent observer recognizes this, and all well informed persons concede it. Considered from whatever point of view, the conclusion is irresistibly the same-no state in all the splendid array, of this great sisterhood of soverign states, is more blessed in the solid excellence of her institutions, or the marvel- ous wealth of her natural resources.
The celebrated Frenchman, DeTocqueville, said of that magnifi- cent stretch of territory between the Alleghany and Rocky moun- tains : "The valley of the Mississippi is, upon the whole, the most magnificent dwelling place prepared by God for Man's abode. Nature has lavished her grandest and richest gifts. No region in the world has received equal recognition at her hands. The fabled productiveness of the Orient, or the Divinely blessed Prom- ised land, pales before the realities of this broad expanse."
What is thus said of the entire Mississippi valley may be emphasized as to Missouri-located as she is, in the richest sec- tion of this fertile valley and in the very heart of the continent. What then of Missouri? Her past is rich in legendary lore- redolent with romance-and sweet with song. True, her Mara- thons and her Thermopylaes are yet to be discovered and pointed out ; no Delphic temple nor cultured Monalith crowns her hills
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with mouldering relics of races and religions now forgotten; no ruined castles lift their weather worn battlements above her peace- ful streams in silent, but eloquent portrayal of the romance and chivalry of a vanished people. Nevertheless, there are vestiges everywhere of an ancient people having once lived here-a people rich and powerful and great in numbers. Nothing definite or satisfactory, however, is known of them. Like the leaves they came, like the leaves they passed away and no man knows whence came they, or whither gone.
Of that later epoch, when the white man came from over the seas in search of fabled mountains and still more fabled fortune ; when Jesuit priests scaled the mountains and forded the rivers and traversed the trackless plains in their zealous efforts to teach the untutored savages the sweet, simple story of the crucified Christ ; of that still later period when the first settlement was made in what is known as Missouri, at St. Genevieve; of its history, first as a French outpost, then a Spanish possession, again a portion of French territory, and finally, that part of the United States known as the Louisiana purchase; of the suffering and hardships and heroic endurance of those pilgrim pioneers who blazed the way for the triumphal march of a higher civilization at a yet later date; of the organization of Missouri under a territorial form of government, and later of her admission into the Union as a state ; of the political wrangles and strife and contention, and the cele- brated compromise upon which she was finally admitted, and of the terrible Civil War which culminated years later, from the causes which that compromise was intended to obviate; of the glorious achievements and heroic bravery of her sons who fought upon either side in that unhappy fratricidal struggle; of her won- derous growth before that bloody era, and of her phenomenal advancement since, of all her glorious past whereof sentiment may weave garlands of song to commemorate achievements, both hon- orable and illustrious-of all this, and more, impartial history speaks.
It is Missouri as she now is with which this paper has to deal. Her past is dead; her future is uncertain, but her present is reality. Whatever she may have been in the twilight of his- tory; what she may become hereafter, Missouri is today, com- pared with her sister states, what Rome was to the other cities of the world in the days of the imperial Ceasar-the crowned
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queen of them all. Very true the statistics do not so proclaim. But these relate only to population, manufactures, visible wealth, etc., as these things actually exist at the time of taking the census. No cognizance is taken of Missouri's undeveloped resources or of the grand possibilities locked up in her mountains of iron ; her miles of navigable streams; the unequalled fertility of her soils and her inexhaustible supplies of coal and other useful minerals. When these are enumerated, where, upon the green globe is there another land that can compare with Missouri ?
She is an empire within herself, nearly in the center of the great valley states, and locked in the fructifying embrace of two of the grandest natural highways of trade upon the face of the earth, she is the natural center of all commercial relations between the sections as she is, practically, the center of the continent. She is the natural gateway through which the East and West must pass in their exchange of commodities, and, also, at which the North and South must meet in trade. Her location alone must make Missouri, in time, the richest and most powerful state in the Union, though every hill were a barren and every plain a desert. But, upon her hills a thousand cattle feed and her valleys are full of fatness. Missouri's geographical location, therefore, is a great advantage, but this is supplemented with other natural advantages that no other equal area, of this or any other con- tinent, can boast.
The natural resources of the state, yet undeveloped, are simply incalculable; while those already developed are almost fabulous in extent and variety. Possessed of every natural advantage in soils and water courses, and blessed with a mild and salubrious climate, the sun never shone and the rain never fell upon a fairer land-a land more picturesquely diversified with woodland and prairie or more generous in its returns to the husbandman's toil. It is a land that veritably flows with milk and honey. It drips with fatness. That which a man sows he reaps-returned to him a thousand fold. All her hills are crowned with glory and all her valleys are filled with beauty and all her plains blossom like the rose. The honest toiler finds here a paradise. He has but to plant and the generous soil gives back to him riches beyond his desire. Eden did no more for the first tiller of the soil than Mis- souri does, year in and year out, for the humblest toiler of the fields, and, as a natural consequence, in every section of the state,
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the landscape is dotted with well ordered farms and comfortable homes, where comfort and plenty set down by the fireside, and happiness and contentment abide.
And yet agriculture is the most inconsiderable of Missouri's resources. Much of the splendid soil lies fallow. Everywhere, travel in whatever direction you may, in many of the richest portions of the state, and endless stretches of prairie meet the eye. Acres upon acres and miles upon miles of the virgin soil yet await the husbandman's skill. Millions of homes remain yet to be estab- lished and untold wealth remains yet to be turned up with the soil. If the surface products of Missouri could be multiplied suffi- ciently to feed the world, and there certainly is no question but that they could be, the subterranean resources of the state are yet more marvelous. All the useful minerals abound here. Coal exists in inexhaustible quantities of the best quality for all purposes. Numerous as are the industries already established looking to the development of her resources in this direction, little more has actually been accomplished than the practical demonstration of the fact that her mineral wealth is beyond computation, surpass- ing in riches the mines of Golconda, and in splendor the magnifi- cent dreams of Aladdin.
Truly it may be said of Missouri, every acre of land is a prin- cipality, and every foot a fortune. There is only the application of skilled scientific labor to the development of her resources, to place Missouri, commercially, as to the rest of the continent, or for that matter, all the world, where Venice stood in the days of the Doges. She may become the money lender-the banker- the Rothschilds of states. The tendency is certainly in this direc- tion. Immigration has, of late years, poured into the state in a steadily growing stream. Money and muscle and mind are daily and hourly seeking investment here, and daily and hourly make rich returns. Thrift, enterprise and tireless energy characterize the people. Progress is written in letters of living light every- where. The broad acres are being brought under subjugation; small farms are multiplying; towns and villages and cities are springing up almost like Jonah's gourd, in a single night. Indus- try and trade have entered in upon and taken possession of all the land. All this is due in a measure only to the natural resources of the state-to the salubrity of the climate and the fecundity of her soil. The institutions under which we live, civil, religious,
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