﻿OOLITIC LIMESTONE INDUSTRY 



81 



are non-assessable, and the capital is small. What surplus funds 

 there are after the purchase of land and machinery are soon tied 

 up in wages and unsold product. Stockholders of such com- 

 panies are as a rule slow to see the wisdom of investing more to 

 gain the larger reward. This lack of funds often prevents the 

 opening of other deposits of stone which may be of a more sal- 

 able quality; and thus the operations of a company are often 

 crippled and not infrequently it is forced to suspend its activity 

 altogether. Moreover, the small concerns seldom operate mills, 

 and must either refuse orders for sawed stone or depend upon 

 other mills for their sawing, paying freight charges to the mills 

 and taking chances of costly delays during the busy season. 



The advantages of large companies over small ones engaged in 

 the industry are thus by nature considerable, and many pro- 

 ducers are inclined to think that a company having, say, a finan- 

 cial backing of less than one himdred thousand dollars has very 

 much smaller chances of success than the larger ones. There is 

 no effort on the part of the large producers to crowd out the 

 small ones ; economic forces take care of that, and the future 

 is likely to see the oolitic field in the possession of a group of 

 large producers, though the possibilities of monopoly appear 

 slight.^^ 



The methods of capitalization in the oolitic stone industry 

 vary considerably, OAving to the circumstances of organization. 

 In companies of small capital the stock is often full-paid, and 

 both land and machinery are purchased directly with funds thus 

 secured. Other small companies capitalize rather highly, but re- 

 tain a considerable portion of their stock as so-called treasury stock, 

 or require only a percentage of the face value of the shares to be 

 paid in cash. This plan appears to work better than the former, 

 since it gives the company a means of extending its operations 

 through the sale of the unissued stock or 1he calling for further pa;*^- 

 m-ents on shares. The land of these companies may be purchased 

 with stock, but is not as a rule greatly overvalued. i\Iany companies, 

 however, are over-capitalized through the appraisement of their 



Just as the above lines go to press, there comes to hand information con 

 oerning the rmion of two of the largest companies in the oolitic field with a large 

 firm operating in the Cleveland sand stone district. The Cleveland Stone Com- 

 pany, now the biggest corporation of Its kind in America and probably in the world, 

 has purchased from the receivers the Bedford Quarries Company, formerly controlled 

 by .John li. Walsh. The new purchase is to be financed through an issue of 

 $1,500,000 six per cent joint l)nnds of the Cleveland Stone Company, the Bedford 

 Quarries Company, and the rerry-^Mathews-Buskirk Quarries, which were acquired 

 by the Cleveland concern about a y<>ai' ago. See Ohio Journal of Commerce, No- 

 vember 12, 1910. 



