Items of Interest March 27, 1915 Issue

Items of Interest

A recent issue of Engineering contains some interesting comments on the mineral wealth of Turkey. Although the present disturbed conditions, it says, for the time being have put a stop to further industrial developments in Turkey, no doubt her rich resources ere long will call for exploitation. The petroleum areas are found almost all over Asia Minor, especially in the provinces of Mossul and Bagdad, in which two districts alone there are a couple of hundred areas. There are also petroleum springs at the Van Lake and at Puek, in Terdscham, to the west of Erzerum. The largest iron ore deposits are located in the mountainous country north of Satim, where the annual production is about three hundred thousand tons, while some thirty thousand tons a year are broken at Ayasmand. The most important coal deposits are those at Ergli, on the Black sea. The quality of the coal varies, but on the whole resembles Newcastle coal. About ten companies are working in that district, a French concern heading the list with an output of five hundred thousand tons a year. The Duysa mine produces one hundred and ten thousand tons annually, the Kurdschi Mining Company eighty-five thousand, and the Zaridscha Brothers Company, sixty thousand. Some smaller companies have an annual output of fifty thousand tons.

The department of agriculture is trying to induce the people of the southern states to grow larger crops of sweet potatoes. There is a steady demand for this vegetable, it is said, and in the South, where conditions are ideal, there is no reason, say departmental authorities, why arrangements should not be made for meeting that demand. Strange as it may seem, the supply of sweet potatoes for the American market is never equal to the demand.

"The sweet potato," says H. C. Thompson, one of the horticulturists of the department, "is one of the most important food crops of the South, and the acreage could be greatly increased without reducing the unit value of the crop. Thousands of southern farmers do not have enough sweet potatoes for home use throughout the year, and very few of the small cities and towns of the South have a continuous or sufficient supply. The small cities of the West and the middle West are not supplied with sweet potatoes, except for a period of a few weeks in the autumn. With the extension of the modern methods of storage, all of these markets could and should be supplied."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"Your Father's good pleasure"