agricultural penury

1601 Woolen Mills Road, Holloway House

Randolph patiently explained the situation to the stockholders in March, 1874. He insisted that the company was fundamentally sound in spite of the depressed condition of financial resources. Orders exceeded capacity. Improvements and additions in buildings and machinery, financed from undivided profits, had added $11,500 to assets. If an extra $30,000 in capital had been available earlier, he felt that the mill could have paid dividends of about eleven percent during those critical years. It was imperative, therefore, to raise this sum, but Randolph foresaw little hope of doing it because of the "almost general bankruptcy of the agriculture of a State which is mainly agricultural and [the] high rates of interest oppressing every branch of industry." Perhaps, he suggested, a "forebearance [sic] of dividend for three years" was the answer.
--Harry Poindexter