SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



This may often be the final argument that clinches the 

 decision for a Southern location. 



Other arguments are sound and increasingly forceful. 

 Climate, for example, is a very persuasive reason, espe- 

 cially to any chemical processing plant. Air condition- 

 ing now cancels the obvious counterclaims. 



"Up North you buy fuel all winter to keep warm," 

 said a paper mill manager who has worked in Maine 

 and Wisconsin, "and down here you buy fuel to keep 

 cool in summer. Take your choice, for I look to see air 

 conditioning spread so rapidly throughout the South 

 that in a few years you will be no more able to sell a 

 house in Alabama without a cooling unit than you could 

 one without a heating plant in Vermont. And that will 

 go for factories, too." 



Southern raw materials also become increasingly at- 

 tractive as they are increasingly processed on the spot 

 into intermediate products. Plastics, rayon, plywoods, 

 metals and alloys, synthetic rubber, hundreds of chem- 

 icals all furnish the basis for whole groups of fabricat- 

 ing industries gathered like bunches of grapes around 

 these new sources of supply. This is apt to be the strong- 

 est lodestone of all the attractions pulling manufac- 

 turers Southwards. Already its force is felt, and what is 

 happening in Memphis is exciting and quite typical of 

 forward-looking promotional work being done in many 

 centers of the South. 



In that historic river city, great marketplace for cotton 

 274 



