d it as a foolish waste of his time to give attention to the mere
occupancy of a desk.

His commercial strength manifests itself rather in the outlining of
matters relating to organization and broad policy with a sagacity
arising from a shrewd perception and appreciation of general business
requirements and conditions, to which should be added his intensely
comprehensive grasp of manufacturing possibilities and details, and
an unceasing vigilance in devising means of improving the quality of
products and increasing the economy of their manufacture.

Like other successful commanders, Edison also possesses the happy
faculty of choosing suitable lieutenants to carry out his policies and
to manage the industries he has created, such, for instance, as those
with which this chapter has to deal--namely, the phonograph, motion
picture, primary battery, and storage battery enterprises.

The Portland cement business has already been dealt with separately, and
although the above remarks are appropriate to it also, Edison being
its head and informing spirit, the following pages are intended to be
devoted to those industries that are grouped around the laboratory at
Orange, and that may be taken as typical of Edison's methods on the
manufacturing side.

Within a few months after establishing himself at the present
laboratory, in 1887, Edison entered upon one of those intensely active
periods of work that have been so characteristic of his methods in
commercializing his other inventions. In this case his labors were
directed toward improving the phonograph so as to put it into thoroughly
practicable form, capable of ordinary use by the public at large. The
net result of this work was the general type of machine of which the
well-known phonograph of today is a refinement evolved through many
years of sustained experiment and improvement.

After a considerable period of strenuous activity in the eighties, the
phonograph and its wax records were developed to a sufficient degree of
perfection to warrant him in making arrangements for their manufacture
and commercial introduction. At this time the surroundings of the Orange
laboratory were distinctly rural in character. Immediately adjacent
to the main building and the four smaller structures, constituting
the laboratory plant, were grass meadows that stretched away for some
considerable distance in all directions, and at its back door, so to
speak, ducks paddled around and quacked i