ful country, but the iron and steel interests with slag to dispose of and iron rods to utilise in some way or other, will extend the preparation of concrete slabs and ferro-concrete for use on the self-same schemes, for road surfaces, etc. They and the cement makers, stone crushers and quarry-masters will find there and in the provision of cement and concrete for frame buildings, viaducts, water works, pipe lines and, perhaps, above all, for the erection of tens of thousands of workmen's dwellings, an outlet for their commodities and a stimulus to their enterprise. Not only houses, offices and roads, but ocean-going ships are now built of concrete. Colliery companies are already very extensively engaged in the making of bricks. We shall find them as coal and iron masters, combining to produce and market steel framework, iron wire and bars, concrete, stone, bricks and other building materials. They will become more and more involved in house, works and office construction and in civil engineering. They will be mechanical and electrical engineers, steel makers, shipbuilders, locomotive, carriage, wagon and tramway erectors. They will be fuel, electric power, heat and lighting producers, coke-oven operators and chemical manufacturers. In fact, they are so, in some instances, to-day.
Capitalism and Agriculture.
The integration of industry and the combination of capitals will not cease even here. The bye-product plants at the collieries and blast furnaces make great volumes of sulphate of ammonia, and the iron works yield the basic slag of commerce. From chemical plants and coke-ovens calcium cyanide and other nitrogen compounds are being made available as fertilisers, destined to become more and more necessary for renewing the crop-growing capabilities of the soil and for increasing the grain harvests of the world. Instead of contenting themselves with dung and natural manures, farmers will use more and more artificial fertilisers, just as they are supplementing natural feeds with machine-made cattle cakes and meals.
Agriculture, in whose service the tool was so largely formed, is now making extensive demands on the machinist and on the low speed oil engineer and, hence, of the iron and coal master.
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