BROOKINGS & PEACH ORCHARD RAILROAD. The hardwood mill of the Harris Manufacturing Company, at Brookings, on the bank of the Black River, in the state of Arkansas, and the equipment and narrow-gauge track of the Brookings & Peach Orchard Railroad, extending from that mill to the line of the Iron Mountain, a distance of 3 miles, were purchased in 1907 by the Quellmalz Lumber & Manufacturing Company. The mill and the tap line are substantially one investment. The latter was not incorporated, however, until 1908, when its track was rebuilt by the present owners and changed to standard gauge. The officers of the tap line are officers also of the lumber company; and while they receive no salaries from the tap line they are accorded annual and trip passes for interstate use by the trunk lines. In addition to its capital stock of $6,000, the tap line owes the lumber company nearly $10,000 on account of purchases of steel and equipment. It has one locomotive and four freight cars, two of which are only 5-ton capacity. It has no station buildings, track scales, or other facilities for handling carload or less-than-carload freight. It has put in operation since the hearing a boat and barge, which it uses for hauling ties and stave bolts on the Black River and tributary waters. Its locomotive hauls out one lumber train daily, on an irregular schedule; the tap line carries no passengers.

The logs are floated down the Black River to the mill at Brookings. The lumber is moved by the tap line for a distance of 3 miles to the Iron Mountain. For this service it receives '3 cents per 100 pounds out of the joint rates published by the Iron Mountain, which are 1 cent higher than the rate from the junction point, so that the net contribution by the Iron Mountain out of its revenues is 2 cents per 100 pounds. In addition to the mill of the Quellmalz Company there are three small sawmills, each having a capacity of 10,000 to 1.5,000 feet daily, which use the facilities of the tap line. Their entire tonnage for the year 1910, however, was but 960 tons, or apparently about 40 carloads. The output of the Quellmalz mill during the same period was approximately 8,000 tons. In addition to the products already referred to, the only traffic handled by the tap line during the year 1910 was 1 carload of corn. Brookings is described as a mill and farm town, with a population of 150, with a company store. While the tap line owns its right of way, the record indicates that practically all the land on both sides of the river is owned by the Quellmalz Company.