What Can Mena
Haul To The World Table?
The best product we have here is space, room to grow in.
Why pay $10,000 an acre for land where water costs a dollar a gallon
and the sun will blister paint off the wall at noon when you can
live here in paradise and get land for a thousand dollars an acre?
Move your horse herds here, your registered stock, your dog training
facility and anything else that needs room to grow.
***
This area is blessed with forests of hardwood and pine.
Numerous sawmills in this area are producing lumber, but there are
only two places actually doing something with the lumber besides
shipping it out.
Industry could come in here to produce wood products on the spot
and thus eliminate all the shipping. Wood pellets, wood
pallets, wood furniture, wood floors, picture frames, sawdust,
A-frames, window frames, cabinets, axe handles, shovel handles,
hammer handles, broom handles, walking sticks, wooden toys, wooden
wheels, plywood, and a dozen other specialties can be made from wood
right from this area. If you have an industry that uses wood,
move it here and take advantage of good labor with loyalty built in.
***
Another thing we have in abundance here is rocks, River
rocks, gray rocks, black rocks and even blue. Thanks to modern
technology these can be
whittled up into any size, shape or color. There's enough rock
here to gravel every driveway in the United States, enough rock to
rebuild every road in the state of Mississippi. Tombstone
etching could be a thriving industry. Cement products can be
produced right here and shipped to anywhere in the world.
Transport is not a problem. There's a railroad going right
through this area to haul it out or bring it in. Trucks leave
here daily for every state in the Union. It's not that
far to the Arkansas River with its cheap access to the World Wide
Ocean.
***
The industries that are thriving here in Mena are using homegrown talents -- like remaking old
cars -- anything from a Model A to a Henry J. It is a real treat to be driving down the road here and see
a real Studebaker pickup coming at you, or parked in driveways. Seems like
every farmer has an old car or truck waiting in their garage for rehabilitation.
Many of them are in mint conditions. Others seem to have let the julep get
to them.
If your small business needs a fleet of cheap cars, trucks or
vans this is the place to get them from. You'll find that
costs are only about half what you'd pay elsewhere. Call 479
394 2065 for actual prices if you doubt my word. If Ronnie
doesn't have what you need at the moment he has a dozen friends in
the same business and he doesn't mind sharing your order with them.
Then there's people that can rebuild airplanes, old tractors, pumps and pistons.
The skills are here, just ask.
*** There are so many things people can do that
don't require them to be inside the company office that is paying them. For
instance, Whooie Sticks can be made at home. With a blast of publicity you
are able to sell tens of thousands of them. By sending one quality control
officer here and running one ad for Whooie Stick manufacturers you can be in
business. A stream of applicants come in, pick up plans for producing the
product and return with their first efforts. Your quality control officer
buys those that are terrific, and shows the other applicants where improvements
are needed before payment can be made. Within 30 days those that are able
to produce Whooie Sticks that sell on the spot will have taught their country
cousins how to do almost as well and you'll have a "factory" whizzing along that
you don't have to heat or pay rent on. The same process will work for any
other product, be it graphics or goat hair cachets. ANYTHING
can be made here that is made elsewhere. A concentrated pool of brilliant
labor is already here. Natural resources abound, and transport is in place
to bring in anything that might be needed, and to ship out finished goods. All that is required is some
industrial tycoon able to produce markets for the products.
*** Why is it people can't be satisfied with what a land wants to produce? Give a
man a prairie and he's determined to raise trees. Give a man desert and he
wants to raise rice. Give a man a forest and his first natural inclination
is to burn it down to make
fields.
Everywhere you look in Polk County there is brush, briars, brambles. Clear it
all out and then turn your head for ten minutes and it is back again.
But what have the captains of industry asked the people here to raise commercially? CHICKENS!
Chickens? Chickens don't thrive in brush, briars and brambles. They want
a chicken house built, a chicken pen, and they demand chicken feed
hauled in just for them.
They want a fan in the summer and they need a heater in the winter.
None of those things slide willingly off of brush, briars and
brambles.
But, brush, briars and brambles will raise goats. There's
enough of it here in Polk County to raise millions of goats. What can you do
with goats, you might ask "Nobody here wants to eat goat meat."
OH! That's right.
But you know what, we can raise them here and ship them to the Middle East
or to Africa, ship them to
Mexico. There are even a few places in China where people will
feast on goat meat. We may not like goat meat, but most of the world is
crying for it.
Let's raise goats. They don't need
heaters or fans. They don't need their feed hauled in from a thousand miles
away either. They thrive on what we have right here in abundance: brush, briars
and brambles. Throw in some poison oak and goats think they are being pampered.
Import some kudzu and they will think they are in heaven.
In the Ouachita National Forest here there are signs up that say: "If
you spot a fire, Let It BURN!" As the Forest Service explains it a fire
consumes the underbrush and lets the trees thrive. Underbrush is another
word for brush, briars and brambles. Isn't that strange? That's just
what goats are good for cleaning up. The only trouble is that goats don't
send acrid smoke, hazardous particulates and terrible fumes boiling into the sky
to pollute our atmosphere. Nor do they leave ashes behind that not even a
wild pig will wallow in. But maybe we can talk the Forest Service into letting
us use goats to clean up their underbrush in spite of this handicap.
Another market for goats is the Foreign Aid Program. Instead of sending
our money abroad so that people can buy food Congress can send goats abroad so
that people will have the strength to earn money. Think about it, if you
were really starving would you rather have a dollar to burn or a goat to roast?
Send goats and wipe out political kickback.
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