Summary of Simple as a whole the simple industries may be thus summarized: They use few raw materials, most of which are of local origin and have not passed through a previous process of manufacturing. These raw materials are usually manu ' factured near the source of production because they are either bulky or perishable in the raw state. If they are perishable, the industry may be highly seasonal, demanding many workers at one time, for example, at the harvest season, and few at others. Such temporary employment plus the absence of complex machinery encourages unskilled labor. This tends to retard regions of simple manufacturing for it tends to prevent the growth of any large body of skilled workers who are usually more eager than the unskilled workers to advance the interests of the community.
The reduction of bulky raw materials to the manufactured condition usually gives some waste products. A flour mill produces bran, a corn canning factory has husks and cobs which were formerly wasted or fed to the pigs but are now beginning to be used for alcohol and other purposes, and a blast furnace produces much slag which is a source of excellent fertilizer. 'Where attention is paid to these, the profits of simple manufacturing are often materially increased. For this reason more and more use is being made of such articles as sawdust, slab wood, . and fish bones. In a large slaughter house every bit of fat is tried out from the scraps of edible meat that cling to the bones. The inedible parts and the bones that are not wanted for buttons or glue were formerly made into fertilizer but now are completely disintegrated in super heated steam and made into cakes that are very fattening for cattle The utilization of by-products is one of the chief ways in which simple industries gradually become complex.
In general, the scale of production in typical simple industries is relatively small and the financing requires only sums that can be raised locally. Sometimes, however, the scale of production is enormous as in the great meat packing establishments and the petroleum industry, but in both these cases the use of by-products is so extensive that the industries are really complex. The selling problem is also relatively simple, for aside from the foodstuffs the products of simple manu facturing rarely go to the ultimate consumer, that is, to the individuals or businesses where they arc finally worn out or destroyed. Instead they usually go to other lines of business where they are changed into new forms as when wood is used in houses, iron in making machinery, and linseed oil in making paint. Under such circumstances the
market conditions in simple manufacturing depend largely on the people from regions of complex industries who go out to buy half manufactured raw materials. This is a disadvantage to the com munities where simple industries prevail because it prevents them from absorbing into their businesses the wideawake type of people who naturally take up the complicated problems of salesmanship.
How the Complexity of the Highest Type of Manufacturing Limits its Geographical Distribution.—A. Materials and Equipment—In the rest of this chapter our aim will be to examine some of the conditions which make the highest type of manufacturing so complex that it has thus far succeeded only among people of unusual alertness and capacity. One of the most prominent of the characteristics of complex manufac turing is the great number of materials required. For example, compare the number of raw materials used by a shoe manufacturer with those of the cattleman who raises the hides which form the manufacturer's chief raw material. The cattleman may need some corn from a distance in addition to what he raised himself. He also needs salt and tar, but only in small quantities. The equipment of saddles, agricultural implements, branding irons, and so forth, which must be purchased from a distance, is relatively small. So is the supply of clothing for the family and that part of the food which is not raised locally. The cattleman's few buildings are simple in construction and are made almost entirely of whatever kind of wood can be procured most cheaply. On the other hand, the shoe manufacturer may require not only leather, but many products of simple manufacturing including cotton thread from the South, maple lasts from New England, nails and eyelets from iron foundries in Pennsylvania, linen thread grown perhaps in Russia and manufactured in England, wax from palm trees on the edge of the Sahara desert, and even oil extracted from bananas raised within the tropics. His buildings take the form of an extensive plant of brick, glass, cement, steel and wood. his tools in large part are highly com plicated machines, some fitted with saws having teeth of English steel, others competent to measure a hide and show on an indicator just how many square feet it contains. In addition to all this, a shoe manu facturing community must depend on other people not only for clothing and shelter, but, also for its food, except perhaps a few vegetables.