MANUFACTURES. Recent years have clearly demonstrated that Alabama possesses a combi nation of advantages for manufacturing enter prise such as are scarcely found in any other part of the country, and which promise to place her in the front rank of manufacturing States. The raw material and the auxiliary agencies of manufacture are found in close prox imity. In the north iron ore is found in the same locality with coal, limestone, and dolomite, making possible a minimum cost of production for iron and its manufactures. The immense for ests of the South supply material for the lumber industry, and the production of tar, turpentine, and resin. The numerous waterfalls and rapids in the State supply the needed power for turning the cotton crop into the manufac tured product, though the abundance and cheap ness of coal has much retarded the utilization of this power. With these advantages must also be considered the lesser cost of living in the Smith, thus making a lower wage possible. The comparative scarcity of strikes and the absence of labor legislation and prohibition of ehild labor in the State have served as an additional attraction for capital from the North. The greatest and almost the sole obstacle in the way of manufacturing, especially of iron products, has been the high railway freight rates. which make it difficult to compete with the products of the North. The improvement of the water course of the Warrior River, already partially executed, will reduce SO per cent. the cost of
conveying iron products to Mobile, which will result in a large increase of the exports of pig iron to foreign countries, already amounting in 1900 to 113.000 tons, and exceeding those from any other State. The following table for the eleven leading industries shOlVS a reload:able develop ment during the decade in nearly every industry. The iron and steel industry leads. Steel manu facture in Alabama is of recent origin. Ala bama iron ores are not suited to the manufae. true of steel Ly the Bessemer process, and it was not until the recently manifested preference for steel manufactured by the open hearth proc ess that profitable manufacture of steel in Ala bama was possible. Of the foundry and machine shop products, cast iron pipe is the most im portant, the other leading products being stoves, car wheels, boilers, and engines. While the State was behind some of her sister States in developing cotton manufactures, the progress from 1890 to 1900, which was greater than that for any other industry, leaves no doubt of the future prominence of the State in the production of cotton goods. Fertilizers are produced by a process of combining Alabama cottonseed meal with phosphates from Florida mines. In the following table the comparisons of wage earners, while not exact, are reasonably indicative of the actual facts.