Business: Business Notes, Sep. 6, 1926

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Drift from Fords. The Ford Motor Co. permits scant publicity for its production figures. Only by inference may these be calculated at the present moment. That is not so difficult. Thus-

The January-June, 1926, U. S. motor car and truck production was 2,449,192. Companies other than the Ford Motor Co. made 1,590,220 cars and trucks. Ergo the Ford Motor Co. made 858,972, or 35.1% of the total. General Motors' production was 26% of the total. Last year the Ford Co. made 42.8% of all (in 1924 51.1%), General Motors, 19.2% (in 1924, 16%). The Ford Co.'s daily production averaged about 5,000 units the first six months of 1926, although the capacity is believed to exceed 9,000.

Another Life Saver. When cigarets taste nasty, when the bouquet of gin lingers, when gum drops cloy—it is soothing to champ at a hard mint tablet. Neither Life Savers Inc. nor other makers of hard candy lozenges flavored with aromatic oils—mint, cloves, pepper—have stressed in their advertising those demands for their products. None the less, they have profited therefrom, Life Savers Inc. most of all. This company is even listed on the Manhattan Stock Exchange. It has 8,000 jobbers and dealers; it makes fruit lozenges, which lack the famed Life Saver "hOle";* and shortly it will sell a Life Saver Cough Drop.

Railroads drew the attention of investors last week. Forty roads have made reports of their July incomes. Their net earnings total $76,952,620, practically 30% more than the $59,620,046 of July, 1925. It is also a gain of 9.5% over the net earnings of last June. Therefore it is probable that, when all the U. S. carriers have made their reports, their net July earnings will aggregate $120,000,000. (In July, 1925, the net earnings of all were $99,462,735.)

The most remarkable of the roads was the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. President William Benson Storey reports that, after all expenses have been deducted from his entire July operating revenues of $25,561,510, he has remaining a net balance of $8,446,943. That is almost double the net operating income ($4,724,336) of July, 1925. This fact and the high earnings of the previous months of this year explain why, last week, Atchison stock was quoted on the Manhattan Stock Exchange at 155%. (On March 30, 1926, its price was 122.)