The number of farms shown by the twelfth census was over five and one-half million, four times the number reported in 1850, and more than a million above the number reported in 1890. This wonderful increase, greater for the last decade than for any other except that between 1870 and 1880, denoted a vast augmentation of cultivated area in the South and in the middle West. Oklahoma, Indian Territory, and Texas alone added over two hundred thousand to the number of their farms. The increase in value of farm resources exceeded the total value of agricultural investments fifty years before.
In the abundant year of 1899 our cereal crops exceeded $1,484,000,000 in value, more than half this being in corn. The hay crop was worth over $445,000,000, that of potatoes $98,387,000, that of tobacco $56,993,000. Next to corn stood cotton, the crop for this year reaching a value of $323,758,000. The total value of farm and range animals in 1900 was $2,981,722,945.
A Census-taker at work.
The census of 1850 reported 123,000 manufacturing establishments, with a capital of $533,000,000. In 1900 there were 512,000 manufacturing establishments, capitalized at $9,800,000,000, employing 5,321,000 wage earners, and evolving $13,004,400,000 worth of product.
In ten years the number of manufacturing plants and the value of products appeared to have increased some 30 per cent. The capital invested had multiplied slightly more, about a third. The number of hands employed had risen but a fifth, betokening the greater efficiency of the individual laborer, and the substitution of machine work for that of men’s hands.
Of seventy-three selected industries in 209 principal cities, the most money, $464,000,000, was invested in foundries and machine shops; the next most, $363,000,000, in breweries. $289,000,000 are employed in iron and steel manufacturing.
Our foreign commerce for the fiscal year 1899-1900 reached the astounding total of $2,244,424,266, exceeding that of the preceding year by $320,000,000. Our imports were $849,941,184, an amount surpassed only in 1893. Our total exports were $1,394,483,082. The favorable balance of trade had continued for some time, amounting for three years to $1,689,849,387, much of which meant the lessening of United States indebtedness abroad. The chief commodities for which we now looked to foreign lands were first of all sugar, then hides, coffee, rubber, silk, and fine cottons. In return we parted with cotton from the South and bread-stuffs from the North, each exceeding $260,000,000 in value. Next in volumes exported were provisions, meat, and dairy products, worth $184,453,055. Iron and steel exports, including $55,000,000 and more in machinery, were valued at about $122,000,000. The live-stock shipped abroad was appraised at about $181,820,000. About 3-1/2 per cent. of our imports came from Cuba, about 20 per cent. from Hawaii, and about 1 per cent. from Porto Rico, Samoa, and the Philippines.
In 1902 the tables were turned somewhat. American exports fell off and the home market was again invaded. Imported steel billets were sold at the very doors of the Steel Corporation factories.
So abundant were the revenues the year named, exceeding expenditures by $79,500,000, that war taxes were shortly repealed. “A billion dollar Congress” would now have seemed economical. Our gross expenditures the preceding year had been $1,041,243,523. For 1900 they were $988,797,697. Our national debt, lessened during the year by some $28,000,000 or $30,000,000, stood at $1,071,214,444.