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Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. (John Davison) Rockefeller
page 20 of 131 (15%)
"That may all be," I urged, "but it will give you no such pleasure as
you'll get when you see those paths--the big tree on each side and
----"

"Go on, John, with your talk about trees and paths. I tell you I've
got an ore ship coming in and our mills are waiting for her." He
rubbed his hands with satisfaction--"I'd not miss seeing her come in
for all the wood paths in Christendom." He was then getting $120 to
$130 a ton for Bessemer steel rails, and if his mill stopped a minute
waiting for ore, he felt that he was missing his life's chance.

Perhaps it was this same man who often gazed out into the lake with
every nerve stretched to try to see an ore ship approaching. One day
one of his friends asked him if he could see the boat.

"No-o, no-o," he reluctantly admitted, "but she's most in sight."

This ore trade was of great and absorbing interest at Cleveland. My
old employer was paid $4 a ton for carrying ore from the Marquette
regions fifty years ago, and to think of the wickedness of this maker
of woodland paths, who in later years was moving the ore in great
ships for eighty cents a ton and making a fortune at it.

All this reminds me of my experiences in the ore business, but I shall
come to that later. I want to say something about landscape gardening,
to which I have devoted a great deal of time for more than thirty
years.


THE PLEASURES OF ROAD PLANNING
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