Manchester is both a cotton port and a great market for the cotton textiles made in the nearby towns of the Lancashire coal-field. Leeds and Bradford and the towns about them are the chief centres of woollen manufacture. Wilton and Kidderminster are famous for carpets. Birmingham is the centre of the steel manufactures. Sheffield has a world-wide reputation for cutlery. In and near the Staffordshire district are the potteries that have made the names of Worcester, Coalport, Doulton, Copeland, and Jackfield famous. Belfast is noted for its linen textiles, and also for some of the largest steamships afloat that have been built in its yards. Dundee is the chief centre of jute manufacture.
The German Empire.—The German Empire consists of the kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemburg, together with a number of small states. The "free" cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck, whose independence was purchased in feudal times, are also incorporated within the empire. The present empire was formed in 1871, at the close of the war between Germany and France. The merging of the states into the empire was designed as a political step, but it proved a great industrial revolution as well.
The plain of Europe which slopes to the north and the Baltic Sea, the flood-plains of the rivers excepted, is feebly productive of grain. It is a fine grazing region, however, and the dairy products are of the best quality. Among European states Russia alone surpasses Germany in the number of cattle grown. The province of Schleswig-Holstein is famous the world over for its fine cattle. Cavalry horses are a special feature of the lowland plain, and the government is the chief buyer. The wool product has hitherto been important, but the sheep ranges are being turned into crop lands, on account of the increase of population in the industrial regions.
The midland belt, however, between the coast-plain and the mountains, is the chief food-producing part of Germany. Rye and wheat are grown wherever possible, but the entire grain-crop is consumed in about eight months. The United States, Argentina, and Russia supply the wheat and flour; Russia supplies the rye.
The sugar-beet is by far the most important export crop, and Germany produces yearly about one million, eight hundred thousand tons, or nearly as much as Austria-Hungary and France combined. This industry is encouraged by a bounty paid on all sugar exported.[68] A considerable amount of raw beet-sugar is sold to the refineries of the United States; Great Britain also is a heavy buyer. The home consumption is relatively small, being about one-third per capita that of the United States. Silesia, the Rhine Valley, and the lowlands of the Hartz Mountains are the most important centres of the sugar industry.
Germany is rich in minerals.[69] Zinc occurs in abundance, and the mines of Silesia furnish the world's chief supply. Most of the lithographic stone in use is obtained in Bavaria. Copper and silver are mined in the Erz and Hartz Mountains. During the sixteenth century the mines of the latter region brought the states then forming Germany into commercial prominence and thereby diverted the trade between the North and Mediterranean Seas to the valleys of the Rhine and Elbe Rivers.
These two metal products made Germany a great financial power. The Franco-Prussian War added to Germany the food-producing lands of the Rhine and Moselle, and the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. At the same time it gave the Germans organization by welding the various German states into an empire. As a result there has been an industrial development that has placed Germany in the class with the United States and Great Britain.