The factory consists of some five buildings, comprising about 63,000 square feet of floor space.  An automatic sprinkler system, fed by a stand pipe, 75 feet high, the water of which comes from an artesian well 320 feet deep gives it efficient fire protection.  It is equipped with the most modern machinery used in the manufacture of biscuit and confectionery products and has a capacity for utilizing more than 90 barrels of flour per day.  The firm manufacture more than 300 varieties of biscuits, which under the slogan "Hamilton's Biscuits make U strong", with some 800 brands of candies, among which H. & S. chocolates, Rival mixture and A-1 mixture are leaders, under the slogan "Hamilton's Chocolates makes 'em happy," has made the Hamilton products the best known in Eastern Canada.

    All the high class goods are put up in attractive one-half, one, and three pound cartons, and the firm manufacturers all its wooden and paper boxes and does all its own printing.

    The industry gives employment to some 180 people, more than one-half of whom are girls, who receive in wages over $60,000 yearly, the greater part of which is spent in Pictou town.

    The firm has branches in Halifax and agents in Quebec, besides employing five travellers, through whom its output is sold in the Eastern Provinces, Quebec and the West Indies.

    Another industry which plays an important part in the industrial life of Pictou is the Logan Tanneries, Limited, a $300,000 corporation of which Wm. McClure, of Pictou, is President, and J. P. Donald, manager, while the tanning is done under the supervision of J. D. Stewart, who has had charge for the past 25 years and whose reputation as a tanner is well known throughout the trade.  The tannery is located at Lyons Brook, three miles distant, along the West River on the Short Line Government Railway, and which with the factory's workmen and their families makes Lyons Brook a village of more than ordinary importance.  It is the only sole leather factory in Nova Scotia.  It was founded as early as 1848, by John Logan, who began the business in a small way by manufacturing sole leather, which even in that early day was noted for its superior quality, and which later under the slogan "Logan's, The Leather of Quality" laid the corner stone of the business success the corporation enjoys at present.

    Under Mr. Logan the factory prospered.  Destroyed by fire in 1875, it was rebuilt on a much larger scale.  In 1903 it again burned down, following which the present modernly equipped plant was erected.  The premises covers an area of about three acres on which are located the large factory, Dry loft, a leach house, warehouse, boarding house and other buildings, which with the grass plot ornamented with flowers facing the factory and the general air of cleanliness prevading it, makes the factory site one which has few superiors anywhere.

    The factory is devoted exclusively to the manufacture of sweat and slaughter sole leather.  It utilizes 1600 to 2000 sides a week, the greater part of which are imported from South America.  The output of leather, weighing some 2,000,000 pounds is sold largely to the factories of the Maritime Provinces, and high class shoe manufacturers of Upper Canada, of whom less than a dozen all told buy practically the whole output.

    The industry employs about 50 men, who receive yearly in wages more than $35,000, the most of which is spent in Pictou.  The majority of the Company's employees are married men, who either own their own homes, or live in houses erected by the former, while the single men may have living quarters in a boarding house on the premises.  Every dwelling has a garden, enabling the owner to raise all the vegetables and small fruit used by his family, while groceries and household goods may be purchased at the store near the factory as cheap as in town, thus making the cost of living very low, and offering to the workmen nature advantages which the city employee craves for in vain.

    The only iron industry in Pictou is the Pictou Foundry and Machine Company, of which A. A. Ferguson is owner, and which was founded nearly 60 years ago.  It occupies a premises 295x500 feet in size, on which are located machine shop and foundry, pattern shop, boiler and blacksmith shop, warehouses and office for the manufacture of castings, engines, boilers and special machinery, as well as doing ship repairing.  The industry employs about 20 people, and does machine work not only for local firms and the coal mine companies of the County, but also for forms as far away as Cape Breton, where the high character of its output has met with general favor.

    Mr. Ferguson is also the President of the Maritime Garage Co., Ltd., which in addition to being an automobile livery, does automobile repairing.

    One of the latest acquisitions to the industrial life of the town is the Atlantic Milling Company, Limited, of which J. W. Smith, the present Mayor of Pictou, is general manager.

    The industry is a direct development of a flour and grist mill, established at West River, near Durham, on the farm of William Smith, one of the early settlers in the country, which after continuing in the family for several generations, was removed by J. W. Smith, great grandson of the former, to Pictou, to become the foundation of the present $50,000 corporation.  The mill, built of concrete tile block, is equipped with all the latest milling machinery, and has a capacity of 75 barrels of flour, and 200 barrels of cornmeal per day, while the elevator stores 40,000 bushels of grain, making it one of the largest and best equipped milling plants east of Montreal.

    The company brings in large quantities of wheat and oats from the west for milling purposes and also mills grain locally for the farmers of Pictou, Colchester, Cumberland, Antigonish and Halifax counties, besides being extensive importers of timothy and clover seed.

    They are at present installing machinery for cleaning and selecting seed of all kinds, which when in operation will make Pictou the seed distributing center for the Eastern Provinces as it is already by reason of this industry one of its largest milling centers.

    The woodworking factory of D. Fullarton & Son, established as early as 1825, includes a planing mill, sash and door factory, and a lumber yard.  The firm manufactures doors, sashes, blinds, shop fronts, mantles, mouldings, sheeting, flooring and other wood products.  They handle laths, shingles and cement, besides hard and soft wood lumber which they sell locally and as far as Cape Breton, Northern Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, employing in their operations 12 men, to whom they pay in wages yearly $6000.00.

    J. Carson & Sons woodworking factory is located new the center of the town facing the harbour, with tracks of the Government railways passing through the property, thus giving it unexampled shipping facilities.  The industry embraces a planing mill, sash and door factory, dry kiln and five warehouses besides a lumber yard.  The firm employs ten people and manufactures doors, sash, mouldings, and other wood products, and are dealers in lumber, lime, bricks, cement tiles, plaster and general material, selling their goods not only locally but also through the northern part of the Province as far east as Cape Breton.

    One of the oldest industries in or near Pictou is Barry's Mill, owned by Alfred D. Barry, located on Haliburton Stream, one of the beauty spots of Pictou County, one and one-half miles from the town post office.  The factory site, mill stream and pond embrace about seven acres.  The industry includes a flour and feed mill as well as wood working factory.  It grinds flour and feed, manufactures woodworking products of all kinds, such as doors, sashes, mouldings, besides dealing in lumber and ice, which he sells both at wholesale and retail.

    Primrose Brothers, wholesale manufacturers and dealers in lumber was founded in 1845 as Primrose & Son, who erected in 1850 the Clarence Wood, Grain and Carding Mill on the site where the Government Railway round house is located.  They own large tracts of lumber in Colchester and Queens Counties and employ during the season cutting lumber, some 200 men, exporting the product largely to the English market.

    The Pictou Marine Railway does ship building and repairing of all kinds, and in the course of the year pays out a large amount of wages.  Wm. Brennan conducts painting shops in Pictou, Stellarton and New Glasgow.  The Viper Company,  Limited, of which Mr. W. C. Wetmore is secretary, builds several types of speed boats, a local invention, the latest of which is the sea sled, known all over the world, as the most worthy and reliable of all speed boats.  The company has a plant at the harbour front and one in the United States, building sea sleds in both countries with the demand for them constantly increasing.