CHAPTER X.

SUGAR BEETS, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS, FISH AND VARIED INDUSTRIES.

Wheresoe’er they move, before them

Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo,

Swarms the bee, the honey-maker;

Wheresoe’er they tread; beneath them

Springs a flower unknown among us,

Springs the White-man’s Foot in blossom.

–Song of Hiawatha.

SUGAR BEETS

  The veteran chief of our national Department of Agriculture, Secretary James Wilson, during his personal visit to the sugar beet belt of Michigan in the fall of 1903, put his seal of approval upon Bay County’s proud title, and any one with discerning eye need but look about, upon the cozy homes, the well kept barns and storehouses, our rich farms of 1905, where stood three decades ago the giants of the virgin forest, to realize that this indeed is a garden spot.

  Bay County first attracted the lumbermen. The farmers of the East preferred for many years the prairies of the West, to the wooded lowlands of Michigan. The pioneers who rushed past our southern border to people Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas did so because they did not care to clear a farm, when there appeared so much rich soil all ready for the plow and harrow. But experience soon proved their calculations to have been in error. While the pioneer of the Dakotas shivered in his shack all winter for the want of firewood, and burned his corn, because the price in the markets of the world did not warrant him to haul it over tedious courses to the nearest trading center, the Michigan farmer was warmed by the hardwood that grew at his very doors, and his labor and income were continuous. The great trees on the land of Bay County’s pioneers brought good prices in Bay City, and many of them were hauled by the farmers themselves to the sawmills. Those not required for manufacture made good firewood, good fences, barns and even cozy homes. If he chose, the Bay County farmer could work his harm in summer, and go to the logging camps at good pay all winter. Where the pioneer on the Western prairies could hardly get lumber at any price, the Bay County farmer from the first could get all he wanted for the hauling and a song. Since farms and farm produce were scarce, prices were always good. In 1880 the government census showed that hay had brought $30 per ton, and potatoes $1.50 per bushel, during the early spring and late winter.

  The soil in Bay County has been found to be uniformly a clay loam, rich and crummy withal. On the few ridges were found light warm soils, hence the county can produce anything from the finest table celery and sweet sugar beets to the ginseng root and tobacco.

  When things looked gloomiest for the business interest of Bay City, owing to the killing of the lumber industry by the $2 tariff on logs, we placed our faith and reliance in the productiveness of our soil, and the increasing importance of our agricultural resources, and we were not disappointed.

  Upon the organization of Bay County in 1857, there were about 25 farms in process of creation in the wilderness of pine stump age and swamps. It was the generally accepted notion of these times, that the lowlands near the mouth of the river were utterly worthless for farm purposes. But the success of our pioneer farmers disapproved those notions by 1870, and from that year dates a decided boom in our rural properties. From mere pine barrens, our townships have blossomed into a veritable garden spot through dint of industry and intelligent cultivation.

  In 1878 Judge Isaac Marston delivered an address before the State Agricultural Society, enumerating the rapid and rich development of Bay County’s agricultural resources. In 1865 there were but 132 farms, and only 2,756 acres were improved. The crops for that year were estimated at 3,300 tons of hay, 26,000 bushels of corn, and 5,500 bushels of wheat, 50,000 bushels of wheat being imported for local gristmills. Tuscola and Gratiot counties with less population than Bay, raised four times as much wheat and other farm products. This was due to the slow development of Bay County’s farm districts. Settlers who came with the intention of taking up farming were pressed into the sawmills, where the returns were quick. But many have lived to regret their action, for they spent all their wages, and at the end of 10 and 20 years were

at exactly the same place where they started, while those who went into farming at once had accumulated much valuable property and a competence. The wage earners as consumers of farm products contributed to the wealth of the food producers.

  As late as 1870 good farm property within easy distance of Bay City could be bought for $10 to $15 per acre. During the winter when the mills were idle, laborers’ would contract to do the clearing for $15 per acre. The soil was a rich black alluvial, with just enough admixture of sand to make it easily tilled and crummy. With the building of the plank roads, the farm lands became more desirable and were quickly taken up, so that the State census of 1874 showed 668 acres in wheat. In 1876 1,110 acres, on 997 farms, with 29,279 improved acreage. These figures are indicative of the progress made in the settlement and development of our despised lowlands.

  In 1890 Bay ranked third as a wheat producing county and best of all, ranked first in many of the farm products, in quality and quantity of production per acre. In that year wheat averaged nearly 25 bushels to the acre and corn, 94. The data of that Federal census proved conclusively that the 6,000 square miles of territory drained by the Saginaw River and its tributaries were the most productive in all Michigan. Wheat, corn, barley, oats and rye were the leading products. The orchards had matured and multiplied to a point where there was no longer any doublt about this being also a great fruit belt.

  The chemists of the Department of Agriculture gave the following instructive composition of Bay County’s soil: Sand and silica, 82.23: alumina, 4.60; oxide of iron, 2.42; lime 1.18; magnesia, .46; potash, 1.18; soda, 54; sulphuric acid, .20; phosphoric acid, .38; organic matter containing .17 per cent, nitrogen, 5.57; water and loss, .25; total ash food, 3.94; capacity for water, 47.30. Comparing this composition with that of the soil in Europe’s favorite sugar beet belt, it was found to be as good and in some respects even superior.

  This led about 1895 to the first experiments with the sweet roots; which have since given Bay County its four monster sugar factories, opened a new and practically unlimited field for the ingenuity and industry of our farmers, and enhanced the value of all farm produce for the entire State. The deep, rich loam, with a subsoil of clay, with plenty of moisture, hot summers and late falls, presented ideal conditions for sugar beets, and the fact that many of our farmers came from the beet fields of Germany and Holland, assured the success of the venture from the first. Hon. Nathan B. Bradley, C.B. Chatfield, E.Y. Williams, Rev. William Reuther and others secured beet seed from Germany and also from the Department of Agriculture at Washing, Dr. H.W. Wiley furnishing willingly for these experiments, all the seed at the disposal of the department for 1896 and 1897.

  In the special report issued by Hon. James Wilson, March 2, 1898, on the beet sugar industry, Michigan was given only secondary consideration, so little did the national department appreciate the resources and initiative of our farmers and manufacturers. Of Michigan the report merely said: “A large part of the Southern Peninsula, and especially the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, is directly in the heart of the beet belt. The contour of the soil is favorable, being reasonably lever (!) With an average (?) Fertility, and the data which have been secured in actual experiments in that valley are of the most encouraging nature. There seems to be no doubt of the fact, that this locality is among the best in the United States for beet culture, and the modifying influence of the lake on the autumnal climate must not be lost sight of.”

  In the averages of the beet samples tested by Dr. Wiley in 1896, Bay does not show up as well as some of the other counties further south, counties which since then have proven in actual experience to be on the whole totally unfitted for sugar beet culture. In this very year 1905 the Rochester sugar factory near Detroit will not be operated, and the few beets raised in that locality will be shipped to other and better located factories. The owners ascribe their failure to the poor, sandy soil of that vicinity. This proves the fallacy of building great enterprises on the strength of a few isolated experiments. The lack of enterprise and cultivation by the farmers of that vicinity is also remarked.

  In the experiments of 1897 Bay presented nine samples; sugar contents, 15.53 per cent., purity 84 percent.. An average since steadily maintained in the cultivation of thousands of acres. Dr. Wiley praised the weight, about 20 ounces per beet, the long tapering root of the Bay County beets, with no bulging above ground, showing a well-worked subsoil, and his report in this respect proved quite encouraging.

  The test beets were planted on May 8^th, and harvested October 6^th. The government computed that Michigan’s experimental station required the following expense in raising an acre of beets: Plowing and sub-soiling, man and team, 12 hours; harrowing and plant, 3 ½ hours; cultivating, 15 hours; harvesting, 5 hours; and man alone, thinning and hoeing, 76 hours; harvesting, 131 hours, at a total cost of $29.60 per acre. The average yield per acre was aver 10 tons; sugar contents, 15.50 per cent. purity 84 per cent. The department also set forth that $100,000,000 was annually sent out of this country for sugar, and urged that American enterprise and industry ought to supply at least a portion of this home consumption. The value of beet pulp for cattle feeding was set forth, the 16 to 25 per cent of sugar still remaining in the refuse molasses was expected to be minimized by new processes, and the production of alcohol from this residuum was forecasted

 The department recommended planting in rows 14 to 18 inches apart, and the thinning of the beets from six to 10 inches. Experience that since shown 20 go 21 inches to give best results in practice, with nine to 12 inches between the beets. It is possible, however, that this practice has reduced the production per acre and resulted in a large beet, which has possessed rather less than the average amount of sugar.

  Three things enter primarily into the successful culture of sugar beets,–a rich soil, a moist, warm climate with late fall, and intelligent and industrious cultivation. Bay County has ever prided herself on having the soil and climate, and the stock of early settlers from the beet regions of Europe, was another favorable factor in determining local capitalists in investing their money in the first beet sugar factory the Michigan, in 1898.

  The success of the beet crop of that year induced many farmers to take acreage the next two years, whose soil was not so well adapted, and many who graduated from the sawmills and lumber traffic to the farm, and hence were not so well versed in the fine culture required for the greatest success of this sensitive crop. Hence the Bay City factory, erected in 1899, and the original Michigan both had ample acreage in 1899 and 1900, but many of the growers could not see the exorbitant profit they anticipated, and hence ceased to take acreage altogether, and moreover antagonized the industry. This did not deter the erection of the West Bay City sugar factory in Banks in 1900k, and the German-American. Factory in Salzburg in 1901, the latter being built on the cooperative plan by a few local capitalists and many local farmers, the latter putting in some ready cash, but providing to pay for most of their stock in certain amounts of beet acreage each year. The latter factory met with some hardships the first year, but the farmers kept their courts steadfastly and the campaigns of 1903 and 1904 were quite satisfactory.

  It has since been claimed in the official reports of the labor department for Michigan, that too many factories were located at Bay City and Saginaw, quoting as a proof of this assertion the fact that this very year the mammoth Saginaw sugar factory is being dis-mantled to be taken to Colorado. We can not agree with these labor authorities. We believe that all the industry requires for constant growth, let alone prospering as it now is, will be the earnest and intelligent cooperation of the farmer and the manufacturer.

  Since the beet sugar industry has taken thousands of acres annually from the competitive field of other crops, the prices of all farm truck and produce have materially advanced here since 1898. Thinking farmers realize that even if there was not one dollar of direct profit, it would still pay them well to raise beets and so sustain the beet sugar industry. Their profit would then come indirectly, but none the less certainly, from sugar beets. But even if we are to accept the worst statements of land grubbers, who find sugar beets to strenuous a crop year in and year out, it is still true that hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid out annually by our sugar factories to our beet growers.

  Here at home the sugar factories have had “troubles of their own” in recent years. There is plenty of soil fit for cultivating the very best sugar beets, the factories have secured the very best seed, their agriculturists have been doing their very best to assist the farmers in raising a profitable crop, and yet not one of the four factories had sufficient acreage for a three months run in 1904. The Michigan sugar house, the first one built in Michigan, was not operated at all last fall, because of the lack of abets and the Bay City sugar house, which sliced its own and also the Michigan factory’s beets did not then have enough for an average season’s campaign. This is a deplorable state of affairs right at our doors, and much of it appears to be due to a misapprehension of facts by the farmers.

  For some years the land grubbers, whose main crops are hay and corn, for obvious reasons have not been content to contribute nothing to sustain these enterprising sugar factories, but they have actually done much to discourage their more energetic neighbors from beet culture. One of their main arguments has been met by the local sugar factories this year by offering $5 per ton flat for the beets. This will do away with fault-finding at harvest time with the findings of the weigh, tare and chemical departments at the sugar factories, and yet leave the more successful farmers to sell their beets on the percentage basis as heretofore.

  The farmers will this year have their choice of contracts, and as last year gave splendid returns for the extra care and work required by the beet crop, the acreage in 1905 is more encouraging. If Bay County’s farmers should still prefer to flood the markets of Michigan with ordinary farm produce, in preference to the finer cultivation of sugar beets, the Michigan factory will next winter be moved to Colorado, where the Saginaw factory was taken this winter, and where the farmers are more than anxious to have them locate.

  The beet sugar industry is still in its in-fancy, and it almost seems as if everything and everybody was conspiring to kill it off. The ill-founded cry of Cuban recipricity results in Cuban cane sugar, raised by cheap coolie labor, being admitted to this country almost free of charge to compete with the home-grown product of American fields and American labor. This was done to help Cuba ostensibly, but time and experience have shown that it primarily favored the American Sugar Refining Company, which imports and handles almost the entire sugar consumed by our people. This action on Congress is almost on a par with the $2 lumber tariff manipulation, and has been as directly and speedily injurious to Michigan, in particular! NOT ONE SINGLE NEW SUGAR FACTORY HAS BEEN BUILT, SINCE CUBAN SUGAR WAS ADMITTED IN 1903, ALMOST DUTY FREE!!

  This so-called reciprocity legislation is a blot upon the record of the party in power. At the National Republican Convention in St. Louis in 1896, the party in its national platform went squarely on record in favor of the infant sugar industry, urging the advisability of protection of so vital an industry until we would produce enough sugar for our own consumption. Much of the capital invested in the beet sugar industry in Michigan in the four years from 1898 to 1902 came into the business relying upon this solemn pledge, that their interests would be protected. Hardly another industry in all our great land is open to more injurious competition. It seems almost treasonable to ask American labor and American capital to compete with the coolie labor and the climatic advantages of Cuba, and yet this is just what Congress ordained. The result is evident in the blight of our most promising farm and factory industry. Undoubtedly many Congressmen from districts that did not have any sugar factories voted in favor of Cuban sugar as against our own American product, in the hope, that their constituents would at once secure cheaper sugar. Their disillusionment has been both swift and thorough, for the sugar prices have been rather higher than before Cuban reciprocity killed this native industry. As if to cap the climax of this paradoxicall action, the powers that be are even now trying to also secure free admission to the Philippine coolie produced sugar. 

  And so we find our promising beet sugar business in 1905, after but six years of arduous development, apparently being ground to death between two millstones,–obstreperous and short-sighted been growers on the one hand, and ill-advised favoritism to foreign colic labor and the sugar trust on the other. It will be for our farmers to do their share toward saving for Bay County its most promising farm and factory industry. And the powers that be at Washington should think well before blighting the last remaining hopes of this infant industry. They can not plead ignorance, for Hon. James Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, personally visited our beet belt and our sugar factories, and his report, submitted to President Roosevelt in 1904, of which 10,000 copies were printed, was widely read and gave much vital information. That report gave Michigan 19 sugar factories and predicted “quite a number of new factories in the near future.” A little investigation by the same authorities will show in 1905 that, instead, five sugar factories were idle last year, and three are being dismantled, with more doomed, unless some little encouragement is held forth by our farmers, and the high protection policy is allowed to offer at least a little grain of comfort to one of our most promising industries. Each farmer should raise as many acres of beets, as he can thoroughly work and harvest with the help at his immediate command. That would solve half of the problem. Congress and the government at Washington can save what is left of our beet sugar business, by LETTING BAD ENOUGH ALONE!

  Secretary Wilson’s report deals fully with the value of the by-products of the beet sugar business, particularly the manufacture of alcohol from refuse molasses by the Michigan Chemical Company, but he does not say that even this factory has not yet been able to secure enough molasses for even a six months campaign. All these factories were built on a basis of future development of the industry, and their millions of dollars invested are now confronted by absolute ruin. He speaks of cheap water transportation but we have never yet heard of a single ton of beets or of sugar going or coming by the river route. The factories on the other hand are doing everything possible to get farmers interested, even at great distances from the plants, by providing weigh stations on the railroads, where beets can be weighed and loaded. Pulp feding for stock-raising is becoming more generally appreciated, and if the beet toppings and leaves could be profitable preserved for cattle feed during winter, there would be little waste left on farm or in factory. The pulp can be fed in wet or dry form, and glue, alcohol and even charcoal can be produced from it. Secretary Wilson is confident that the beet industry will make still better uses of its refuse materials. He says but a few years ago the meat industry of the country was conducted locally, and many things went to waste. Today the meat industry is well organized, and hair, hoofs, blood, horns and other parts of the carcass, that formerly went to waste, are being utilized, and he predicts as much progress for the beet sugar industry. The average citizen of Bay will wonder, by the way, why beef prices are so high in 1905, if the prices of cattle are so low, and all this former waste is being utilized.

  But, any way, we hope these fond predictions will come true, and our beet sugar business receive such consideration as its great value to our farmers and laborers certainly merits. The seasons of 1902 and 1903 were bad for sugar beets, late springs, too much rain, and early frosts and freezing, all combining to injure the crop’s prospects. Other crops also suffered, of course, but the farmer appears to be used to off seasons for potatoes and corn, but just one bad season for his beets totally discouraged him. Potatoes were high in 1903, because most of them hereabouts rotted in the ground, hence many farmers rushed largely into potato raising in 1901, and as a result the price went down to about 25 cents per bushel. Sugar beets on the other hand have never changing value of $5 or more per ton.

  Hence it will be of vital interest to our county, for the farmer to include sugar beets in his regular crop rotation, for he is in fact a partner with the factory in the business. The culture of sugar beets caused a general revival in agriculture, and dairying has also felt the beneficial effects of this vitalizing crop and its by-products. The invention of labor saving machinery will lighten the work of the beet growers. With proper soil preparation and good fertilizing, the value of every acre of our farms will be enhanced. For the intense cultivation required by the beet crop kills all noxious weeds, makes the soil crummy and light to depths not before reached, and so more productive for other crops in proper rotation.

  The value of the crop to Bay County and Michigan can be illustrated by a few facts and figures. The 16 factories operated in 1904-05 cost over $12,300.000, or more than $600,000 per factory, with a daily capacity of 12,000 tons of beets. Over 96,000,000 pounds of sugar were produced in Michigan in 1904, despite the shortage of the beet crop, while 113,000,000 pounds were produced by the same factories in 1903. Skilled workmen to the number 511 were employed at $3 per day, and 2,910 other laborers in the factories averaged $2.48 per day. About 59,000 acres of beets were raised last year, a decrease, compared with 1903, of 34,000 acres and 195,000 tons of beets. These figures apply particularly to Bay County and speak for themselves. The average acreage per farmer was estimated in 1903 in Bay County at 7.1; in 1904 at 6.3; averaging 9.7 tons per acre each year but with much better sugar percentage in 1904. The average price per ton in 1903 was %5.01; in 1904, $5.61. Thirteen pounds of seed were sown per acre, at 15 cents per pound, while the average cost per acre for raising and harvesting the beets was $23.29 in 1903, and $22.69 in 1904. About one third of Bay County’s beet growers hired outside help to take care of the crop in 1904, furnishing work to men, women and children, the latter profiting especially by these opportunities during the summer vacation season. The sugar houses only ran 59 days on the average in 1904, with average daily capacity, 640 tons of beets, producing an average of 6,022,000 pounds of sugar in 1904. The beets tested 14 per cent in 1903 and 15 per cent in 1904.

  The writer in 1903 interviewed 103 beet growers for the State labor department and found 71 of them believed beets to be their most profitable crop on a limited acreage, and 64 were certain the value of farm lands had advanced, while the rest thought the values stationary or did not know which. Just a look at the records of the register of deed’s office in Bay County will set at rest all doubt about the increase in land values and increased demand for farm lands in recent years. And it is something more than a coincidence that this boom dates back no further than the introduction of the beet sugar industry.

  The banks and business housed of Bay City offer another convincing proof of the benefits conferred on bay County by the introduction of the beet sugar industry. Most of the hundreds of thousands of dollars, paid out each fall in ready cash by the factories to the farmers, find their way into the various avenues of business, buying more comforts for the farm home, improving the farm property generally lifting mortgages and opening up the rural townships. Only this very month of April, 1905, another large addition has been made to the colony of German farmers from Illinois, in Kawkawlin township, drawn hither by the fine farming country and the ready and rich market facilities. Garfield, Gibson, Mount forest and Pinconning townships, five years ago sparsely settled, are being rapidly cleared by industrious and hardy farmers, so that are long the entire county will come within the virile meaning of the title “Garden Spot of Michigan.” The soil, climate, drainage, and fine road system are here, the muscle, brawn and brains are here; the rest must follow! The beet sugar industry has given Bay City a commanding position in the agricultural and industrial affairs of our country, and hence has done much to increase the value of all other farm products.

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS

  With the advent of the beet sugar industry came the rising of chicory on a large scale, and today Bay County chicory has a world-wide reputation. The two local factories will increase their output from 2,500 to 3,500 tons of chicory this year, and are planning more additions for next year.

  The county still holds its leading place in the production of grains, the average yield per acre and the quality being the very best in Michigan. The large gristmill and grain elevators of Hine & Chatfield and Bromfield & Colvin, on the East Side, and of the Frankenlust Flouring Company together with the Auburn grain elevator, provide a ready market for Bay County’s grain supply.

  The Bay City Sanitary Milk Company, Ltd., two cheese factories at Amelith, one at Arn, three at Auburn, one at Beaver, one at Bentley, one at Linwood, and one at Willard, with five institutions producing the finest dairy butter, indicate the development of the county’s dairy interests.

  The Betel canning factory, on the site of the old Sage mill, uses up the product of many acres and many orchards.

  The two four-story brick blocks occupied by the Harry N. Hammond Seed Company, Ltd., on Adams and Jefferson streets, are hives of a new and growing industry locally. Several hundred men and woman are employed during the season sorting and packing the seed for shipment, which is grown on the rich fields of Bay County!

  A dozen large produce houses handle the garden truck of surrounding farms, with several smaller distributing plants on convenient railroad points in the heart of our farming district. Thousands of dollars worth of superior garden products are annually shipped from Bay City, principally to Chicago and the far East. This steadily increasing business demands at an early day the erection of a well-equipped and well-situated public market place. This much needed improvement has been long in abeyance, and should be one of the first great concerns of Greater Bay City. The 75 miles of macadamized stone roads invite the farmer to come here with his farm products, even from far distances. Conveniences for marketing this product quickly and conveniently would bring still more of this business. Let us have a public market, and at once! Modern methods and experience have shown that hauling by wagon for long distances is more expensive that shipments by rail in large quantities, hence more railroad facilities would also be a boon to our rural districts.

  The Bay County Agricultural Society in the day of Judge Isaac Marston was a leader in Michigan. In late years it has acquired a most desirable Fair Grounds and half-mile race track par excellence, on the eastern limits of Bay City, just north of the eastern terminal of Center avenue, and within easy reach of our oldest and most advanced township. Yet our county fairs in recent years have not been representative of our county’s standing in the agricultural world! Our progressive farmers and business men should take hold of the annual fair and make it what it should be, representative of the highest and best in the agricultural and dairying interests of Bay County. Each progressive and public-spirited farmer’s family should be able to spare at least three days once in each year, for mutual comparison, study, recreation and encouragement. The county has provided all the facilities in the beautiful Fair Grounds; but for some inexplicable reason the property has been woefully neglected in the last 10 years. Eugene Fifield, of Bay City, is president of the Michigan State Agricultural Society in 1905, a compliment no less to his years of devoted work for Michigan’s annual agricultural fair than to the county he represents! And if a great gathering of our farmers and farm products is such a good thing for the State, why not a similar annual reunion of our sons of toil, right here at home? The results will justify and the great effort now necessary to revive interest and zeal in our Bay County Agricultural Society and our annual fair! Let every enterprising and intelligent farmer be up and doing! Verily our rural population has gained much in recent years! Bay County is screened from end to end and from side to side by the wires that furnish the telephone right in the homes of our farmers. And our splendid road system assured us at once a complete list of rural free mail delivery routes. There is scarcely a corner of the county that does not now get its daily paper as regularly as the city folk. Surely Bay County leads in all these things, and the leadership of our farmers should be in evidence at the annual fair, in an up-to-date city marker, and enough beet acreage to assure us forever the business benefits of this industry! Let the fair title “Garden Spot of Michigan” be no mere play of words. Do not leave everything to Providence and your good neighbor! Work to win, and win you must!

FISH

  One of the attractions in this valley for the aboriginal Indians was the unlimited supply of fish that could be secured just for the frying. The earliest settlers never feasted a famine, for the river and bay were alive with the finny tribes. The earliest settlers of Bay City divided their time between lumbering and fishing. As early as 1860 the export of fish from Bay City was valued at over $50,000 annually. Few people even now realize the importance of this industry. In 1905 it has resolved itself into a veritable science.

  There are two kinds of commercial fishermen,–those on the river, and those fishing on the bay,–and their methods and catches vary vastly. River fishing is best in spring and fall, when the fish seek the creeks and branches for spawning, and then the catches on the bay shore are enormous. In summer the campaign is carried on far out in the bay and lake, while in winter the spear fishermen try their luck through the thick ice of Saginaw Bay. The fish are packed in barrels in alternate layers on ice, and are shipped as far East as New York City.

  Despite the efforts of the State and Federal fish hatcheries, the supply is gradually diminishing, owing chiefly to the rapacity of the fishermen themselves, who block the streams where the fish go to spawn, and who, despite the strict surveillance of the State game wardens, catch many undersized fish. Like the lumbermen who slaughtered the forests ruthlessly and heedlessly, these fishermen may some day find their occupation gone, just for the lack of a little foresight and good business judgement, for the fish supply of lake, bay and river is no more inexhaustible, than was the lumber supply.

  Trap nets are used on the river and bay, and gill nets on the lake. Pickerel, perch and bass are caught mainly on the river and bay, while sturgeon, lake trout and white fish pre-dominate in the lake. The best season usually is April, May and June. Winter spearing through the ice is variable, the shanty village sheltering from 500 to 2,000 souls, according to working conditions and the run of the fish. River fishing is increasing in importance, several hundred men finding it a paying pursuit.

  The fishing fleets are annually growing, and bay and lake fishing are also increasing. Beebe & Company, the Trombleys, the Lourim brothers, George Penniman and Frederick W. Benson have been in this business for more than 25 years, while Robert Beutel, W.P. Kavanaugh, D.A. Trumpour Company, W.E. Fisk, Dormer Company and Saginaw Bay Fish Company are among the larger and more recent entries into this paying industry. Angling for sport and food is open in all and is the delight of many people each season,.

VARIED INDUSTRIES

  So closely interwoven are the mutual interests of Bay County, that an injury to either the industrial or agricultural interest is bound to injure the other. When all the homes of Bay City are filled with well-paid and contented people, the farmer will have a ready market for his products right at his doors, prices will be good and land values increase. On the other hand bountiful harvests mean much ready cash to our rural populations, with increased purchasing power, and corresponding prosperity for the business institutions of Bay City. Many of our farmers find steady employment each winter in the fishing and other industries, an advantage not enjoyed by many farm communities, most of whom throughout the country can do little but sit around and eat up during the winter the accumulations from the summer’s work and harvests.

  The ship-building industry has done much for Bay City in the last 30 years, and incidentally furnished employment for many farmers during the winter seasons. Bay City has ever offered unrivaled facilities for ship-building. Practically unlimited supplies of oak and other timber were at hand for the wooden vessels of a decade ago. The presence of the broad and deep Saginaw River on which hundreds of vessels, from the smallest to the very largest and latest addition to the fleet of the Great Lakes, have been launched here for 50 years, and without one single mishap, meant much to the industry.

  During all those years, the local ship-building plants kept pace with the growing demands of the lake traffic. The schooner “Savage,” built for river traffic in 1831-37; the stern-wheeler “Buena Vista,” all hold and no cabin, launched in 1848, commanded by Daniel Burns, he of State-wide celebrity as a humorist and buffoon; some fishing boats built about 1849; and the first large boats built here by H.D. Braddock & Company in 1857-58, the “Essex” and “Bay City,”–all were noted craft in their day and generation.

  Later, Ballentine & Company turned out some large and good lake craft, and with the advent of Capt. James Davidson the local ship-building industry assumed large proportions. In 1875 the product of the shipyards was placed at more than half a million dollars. In 1881 Grosthwaite’s yard built three vessels worth over $100,000; Davidson’s yard, two vessels, costing $180,000; Wheeler & Crane built and rebuilt five vessels, at a cost of $395,000, while the Bay City Dry Dock, at the foot of Atlantic street, earned $30,000. In 1883 Wheeler & Crane built a steam barge for Captain Forbes, 196 ½ feet keel, 34 feet beam and 14 feet hold, a monster boat for those day, but a midget compared to the “Sylvania” with its length of 593 feet, launched at this same yard in April, 1905.

  In 1883 Captain Davidson was building the largest boat then on the Great Lakes, extreme length, 287 feet, 40 feet beam, 21 ½ feet hold, heavily trussed, and for some years the pride of Bay City. In the 10 years from 1885 to 1895, Captain Davidson built some of the finest and fastest wooden vessels in the world. The “City of Paris,” “City of Berlin,” “City of Venice,” “City of Rome,” and sister craft, are today the proud leaders of the remaining wooden ships on the Great Lakes. The advent of the whale-back and other styles of modern steel steamers have relegated the wooden vessels to the rear in recent years, but the Davidson shipyard still finds plenty to do in building smaller river craft, rebuilding the worthy wooden vessels still in commission and in general dry dock work. The plant is still one of the finest on the Lakes and may yet be converted into an iron and steel ship-building plant.

  Hon. F.W. Wheeler, now of Detroit, early foresaw the changes coming in the building of lake craft, and he forthwith kept pace with the most advanced ideas of iron and steel ship-building. The immense shipyard north of the Michigan Central Railroad bridge, has nearly a mile of river front, immense work-shops, mills and power cranes, and when the shipyards of the Great Lakes were placed in a trust by the American Ship Building Company, with headquarters at Cleveland, Wheeler’s modern plant was one of the first to be taken into the combine. Since then this fine yard has secured its share of the new steel ships built on the Lakes, and has the distinction in 1905 of turning out the three largest steel steamers afloat on the fresh water. Time and again rumors have had this yard transferred to other points, but the fact that the very best craft are even now assigned to the West Bay City Ship Building Company’s yard is the very best proof that the location here meets modern requirements.

   Labor troubles, often ill-advised and working only mutual injury, have blighted the ship-building industry at this yard on several occasions, invariably ending with loss all around and not one thing gained by anyone. It almost proved a case of killing the goose that laid the golden egg, and it is to be hoped that the local shipyard employees will in the future receive the best wages offered similar crafts in other lake ship-building plants as in the past, which to a layman appears eminently fitting and fair, and under no circumstances again lend themselves a lead a new and arbitrary wage basis fight, unsupported by other shipyard employees, whose chestnuts they were evidently trying to pull out of the fire. The net results in years past has been the driving of new boat contracts to these outside yards, compelling local ship-builders to leave home and follow the work in other ports. It must be self evident to all thinking men, that the local yard could not compete with these outside ship-yards, if the cost of labor here was more expensive than elsewhere. Our cheap fuel, fine yards and harbor facilities will meet this competition, if the cost of labor is the same as else-where, and will preserve for us one of our oldest, largest, and most profitable industries.

  Since the keel was laid for the monster steamer “Sylvania,” the west Bay City Ship Building Company has employed nearly 1,000 skilled mechanics steadily all winter, and the work now on hand will keep the yard running at capacity until next summer. By that time other contracts are expected, and the outlook is indeed favorable. Captain Davidson during 1904 employed nearly 500 men, according to the State labor commissioner’s annual report, at $2.58 on the average per day.

  The Bay Yacht Works and the Brooks Boat Pattern Company are recent additions to Bay City’s boat industry, and their trade already extends around the world. Yachts built here may be found in the Gulf of Mexico, on the Atlantic and the Pacific, and in far-off Japan. Both plants are constantly increasing their facilities and output, and incidentally doing much to advertise the city abroad.

  The Industrial Works, William L. Clements, president and Charles R. Wells, secretary and treasurer, is far and away the oldest and most reliable employer of labor in Bay City. From a modest beginning in 1868, doing much marine repair work, this plant has gradually grown to its present mammoth proportions, covering two squares on the river front, from 11^th street to Columbus avenue, with substantial and large brick buildings. The railroad cranes and wrecking cars manufactured by this concern are unrivaled and are protected the world over by patents of great value. This big plant has run to its capacity with day and night crews for many years, barring a few months last year, when matters of management were being adjusted. Nearly 1,000 skilled mechanics are on the pay-roll of this institution.

  The Smalley Motor Company, Ltd., N.A. Eddy, chairman and James B. Smalley, treasurer and general manager, is another new and substantial institution, with a plant on the river front at the foot of Trumbull street built in 1903; employment is given to about 200 skilled workingmen the year round.

  The National Cycle Manufacturing Company employs about 150 skilled men, and the product is sold all over the country, as well as abroad, a living message of our growing importance as a city of diversified industries.

  The M. Garland Company, 83 men; National Boiler Works 35 men, MacKinnon Manufacturing Company, 72 men; Valley Wind & Engine Company, 30 men; Alert Pipe & Supply Company, 45 men; Bay City traction car shops, 51 men; Valley Iron Works, 35, men; Bailey Metal Furniture Fixture Company, 25 men; Marine Iron Company, 45 men; Bay City Iron Company 47 men; Bay City Boiler Company, 49 men; brass foundry, 10 men; Wilson & Wanless, 27 men; Valley Auto Company, 19 men; Michigan Central Railroad repairs shops, 43 men; Valley Sheet Metal Works, 13 men; and Excelsior Foundry Company, employing nearly 100 men, indicate the extent and value of Bay City’s iron industry, enhanced by many smaller concerns, who work in the same lines of business. What we need now is smelting works for ore, made possible by cheap coal right at our doors, and our unsurpassed water shipping facilities.

  The Hecla Portland Cement & Coal Company, capitalized at $5,000,000, in 1902-03 constructed its million dollar plant just south of the lighthouse, with a mile of deep-water frontage on the river. Julius Stroh, the millionaire brewer of Detroit, was the main stockholder, and the little settlement nine miles from west Branch, where the marl beds are located, is named “Stroh” in his honor. The dried marl will be hauled in 50-ton dump railroad cars to the million dollar plant in Bay City. The drying plant has a capacity of 1,000 tons of marl per day. The company located four coal fields: Hecla mine No. 4 in Frankenlust township has proven a good producer, while the others–one near Kawkawlin, the second west of the city, and the third just east of Auburn–have not yet been developed. They are planned to produce 1,500 tons of coal daily, 300 tons for the use of the cement and kindred plants, the rest for shipment by water, for which huge and modern coal docks are to be constructed. The company owns its own railway to the marl beds and coal mines and employs its own rolling stock. The clay and shale used in the manufacture of Portland cement is secured in the same shafts with the coal, and the plant as now completed has a capacity of 3,000 barrels of cement daily. In 1904 the stockholders went into litigation, which is still pending, and hence our most promising new industry is awaiting the slow process of untangling the status of the company’s affairs by legal procedure.

  The North American Chemical Company is another million dollar plant, of which Bay County may be justly proud. This mammoth plant furnished the match=makers of America with the chlorate of potash used on match tips, and came to this country in 1898 from Liverpool, England, and because the Dingley protective tariff compelled them to do so, in order to hold their American trade. The company is located just outside of the city limits, on 250 acres of the old McGraw sawmill site, and also owns and operates the Bay coal mine in Frankenlust township,. M.L. Davies is the general manager and since coming here in 1899, has become actively identified with the interest of Bay City and, with his charming wife, has become a decided acquisition to the business and social life of our community. Although Mr. Davies is a typical Englishmen, he stops the wheels at the plant just one day in each year, July 4^th, the several hundred otherwise never losing an hour. Since 1898 this plant has paid out in wages $615,000, and to the merchants of Bay city $1,250,000, and at the Bay coal mine from 1899 to November 30, 1904. $275,800 in wages, and $150,000 to our merchants for supplies! The chemical products of this plant include bleaches and dyes for dress goods, salt, chlorate of soda, chlorate of potash, and other chemicals, the process of making which is a secret and patented. The main building is 550 by 220 feet with numerous smaller buildings of brick. Fourteen boilers and three Corliss engines of 1,200 horse-power run the plant and consume annually 60,000 tons of coal, mostly slack. It produces 1,000 tons of the purest white salt daily by the grainer and vacuum process.

  Bousfield & company’s woodenware works, the largest in the world, is located on six squares on the river front, south of Cass avenue. The company employed 632 men and boys in 1904. It ships its product all over the country and is one of our oldest and best manufacturing institutions. The plant of the Hanson-Ward Veneer Company is one of the latest and largest additions to the South End, employing 242 men the year round. Handy Brothers with 218 men and Bradley, Miller & Company with 227 men, on the West Side river front, and the E. J. Vance Box Company, Ltd, on the East Side, with 141 men, are the largest local box shook manufacturers. Mershon, Schuette, Parker & Company, with 131 men, Bradley Miller & Company, with 46 men, and E.B. Foss, with 112 men, lead in the lumber yard business. The surviving sawmills employ the following forces of men, according to State census statistics: Samuel G.M. Gates, 71; Kneeland-Bigelow Company, 53; Campbell-Brown Lumber Company, 37; Edward C. Hargrave, 84; Morey & Meister, 55; Wyllie & Buell, 140; J.J. Flood, 87; Wolverine Lumber Company, 34; Caterwood & Glover 32; and Kern Manufacturing Company, 144; W.D. Young & Company’s hardwood mill leads the country in maple flooring, employing 233 men, and running the wood alcohol plant in connection with 55 men. The Goldie hoop mill is one of the best in the country, with 138 men, and the Standard hoop mill employs 95 men. The Quaker Shade Roller Company is a new institution, with 105 men and 41 women, and the Michigan Pipe Company is an old reliable institution, with 41 men. Smaller box factories are those of B.H. Briscoe & Company, 46 men; Bindner Box Company, 53; William H. Nickless 42; Fred G. Eddy, 30; Bay City Box Company, 79. The following named concerns operate sash, door and building supply mills: Mathew Lamont, employing 68 men; Lewis Manufacturing Company, 53; G. Hine, 46; Sheldon, Kamm & Company, Ltd.., 42; Heumann & Trump, 41; cooper houses; Goldie Manufacturing company, 96; Beutel Cooperage & Woodenware Company, 61; Aaron Wheeler, 53; edwin F. Rouse, 39. The Bay City Woodworking Company employs 32 men and 24 women; Maltby Lumber Company (cedar posts), 31 men, and Bay City Cedar Company, 21 men. The Creamery Package Manufacturing company has 29 men; Walworth & Neville Manufacturing Company (cross arms), 59; the Beutel canning factory 19 men and 36 women; the Stone Island brick and tile works, 44 men; Bay County Rock & Stone Company, 21 men. Three large and modern breweries employ over 100 men, and supply much outside territory. The Scheurmann shoe factory is a modest beginning for a promising industry, with 14 men and 10 women. The victory shirt waist factory is another innovation, with 65 women. The Bay City Knitting Company now occupies a four story brick building on First and Water streets, has the most modern machinery and is constantly branching out. It claims today to be the largest order filling hosiery factory in America, has 25 men and 83 women on its pay roll and will practically double its out put of “Star” hosiery this very year. The Galbraiths established this business from humble beginnings in 1899, and by persistent pushing and good workmanship have created one of our most promising manufacturing institutions. These and a hundred other but smaller concerns are our creative industries, and the roll of employees, taken from the State labor reports, is an encouraging indication that we still have many wealth producers in our ranks. The big sawmills have been superseded by smaller but more enduring industries. And this must be but a beginning, for there is plenty of room for more like unto them.