Clarksville Weekly Chronicle

CLARKSVILLE INDUSTRIES.
Meriwether & Patch's Plow Factory.
Always profoundly interested in enterprises which give employment to productive industry, we were gratified a few days ago by an invitation to visit the plow factory of Messrs. Patch and Meriwether; of this invitation we very gladly availed ourselves on Tuesday last. We were very courteously received by Mr. Patch, whom, with his son George, we found in the office. Mr. P. conducted us through several departments of his establishment, in which we saw the wood work cut out with mathematical nicety by machinery, plough-shares moulded and cast in a foundry expressly built for the purpose, and all the minuted screws, bolts, etc., constructed from the raw material; all these were fitted together, by experienced workmen, with a degree of expedition which made it the less surprising when he told us that he can manufacture fifty plows a day. One very gratifying circumstance to us was, on observing the workmen, to see among them so many familiar faces of young men raised in Clarksville. We enquired how many hands he kept employed; about twenty-five he replied, and these are all Clarksville boys. And how many of them, we asked, are skilled workmen, and how many laborers? He smiled and said "they are none of them skilled workmen when they come to us, but they all have to become so before they have been here long, or we have no use for them." And do you find our Southern boys quick at learning and industrious? He here became very animated and said, "there never was such a mistake as to represent Southern boys either unwilling or unable to work; the trouble is that there is no one here to teach them. Once show them how, and workmen more skillful or more industrious can be found nowhere; but they have no way to learn. If they want to learn Greek they can go to college and learn it; for learning any productive industry they must go away to do it." We found we had now got Mr. P. on his hobby and resolved to keep him there, as men are always worth listening to when they talk of subjects on which they think and feel strongly. We enquired regarding the market for his wares. He said that the great staple of his manufacture was plows for the cotton districts of the South, though he manufactured a good many for local use. He then took us into the office and read us a letter from Mr. Meriwether, his partner, who is now canvassing the State of Arkansas for orders. In traveling from Little Rock to Fort Smith he had already received orders for 3,750 plows; at Clarksville, Ark., (for its name's sake we suppose), orders had come to him for 500 more, and he has no doubt that, by varying the route, 10,000 plows can be disposed of in Arkansas alone. The difficulty is not to get the order, but to increase the working facilities of his factory so as to be able to fill them.
Pondering on all these things we came to several conclusions, the first of which was that it is a God-send when men like Mr. Patch settle among us, and especially a God-send to a couple of dozen young men who are engaged in active and intelligent employment, which could not otherwise be found for them. But it is a blessing to all of us. Clarksville is built on tobacco, but she cannot always rest upon it; the area which will produce it is limited, and it rapidly exhausts the soil in that; moreover, new and competing markets are constantly opening for the disposal of it. Clarksville, then, must find something else to do, besides the buying and selling of tobacco, and the experiments of Mr. Patch has already demonstrated the fact that, if we will go to work, there are endless fields for disposing of the product of our labors. One thing, however, is needed for all manufactures, if they are to compete with those of other cities—cheap and accessible fuel; and this means railroads to the coal producing districts. There is the moral to our tale.