Business & Finance: Hobby Factory

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Last week the dammed-up waters of the Saline River spilled through a generator at the little village of Milan. Mich, creating power for Ford Motor Co.'s 15th "factory in the meadow." All but three of the 16 are in Michigan within 50 miles of Dearborn, and the Milan factory is fairly typical; a good example of Henry Ford's back-to-the-farm hobby which also helps him make automobiles at a profit.

More than a year ago Ford workmen appeared in Milan, began throwing a dam across the Saline, turning the Milan Garage and an old grist mill into a factory to manufacture ignition coils and to process soybeans for plastics. Into the factory, shaded by trees on the bank of the little lake made by the dam, last week went 30 Milan villagers. It will give employment eventually to some 30 more. They will spend their spare time on their farms growing their own food. They will work with cheap water power and they are expected to work more quickly, more efficiently, with less supervision, in the small community with pleasant surroundings. The United Automobile Workers may have a hard time getting at them there.

Mr. Ford thinks that the centralization of the 1920s has been carried far enough. He looks to a time when all the incredible number of light parts that go into a Ford will be made in little towns where the annual shut-down for retooling can be made to coincide with the harvest.