Tool Growth

By no means confined to rakes, hoes, pitchforks and such other humble tools is American Fork & Hoe Co. with plants in Ashtabula, Ohio, Wallingford, Vt., Fort Madison, Iowa, Harriman, Tenn., and many another rural centre. About 5% of its-gross comes from golf shafts, fishing rods, snowshoes, skis; another 5% from railway appliances like joint shims and rail anchors. Yet its chief income is from farm tools, in which it handles 60% of the U. S. trade. Last week this business was expanded when a merger with Kelley Axe & Tool Co. of Charleston, W. Va., and Skelton Shovel Co. of Dunkirk, N. Y., was proposed. American Fork & Hoe is a typical large, closely held company. Its assets are near $10.000,000. Its earnings have never been disclosed to a curious public. President and general manager of the company is George Britton Durell who, in the garden of his two-acre home in Cleveland and on his 2,000-acre farm outside of the city, tries out new tools with a skill learned on his father's truck farm. Speaking of the merger, he said: "While no two of the companies manufacture the same product, nearly all the tools made by them are composed of steel heads and wooden handles, and the processes of manufacture are similar."

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