Our native chestnut is of better quality than the foreign kinds, but the nuts are much smaller. The largest are from Japan, some of which are two inches in diameter. Many of these choice kinds have been imported, and others were originated from seeds, which are now being planted in orchards. The best of the European chestnuts have also been imported, and new kinds have been grown here from the nuts. Nearly all of these varieties succeed in America, and many small orchards have been planted. Some have grafted sprouts from our native chestnut stumps and small trees with these improved kinds, and found them to grow and bear abundantly.
The cocoanut is strictly tropical, and can only be grown in the very warmest parts of Florida. It will not endure as low a temperature as the pineapple without injury. As a commercial venture its culture will probably never pay in America, but for ornamental purposes and as an interesting novelty it is already a success from Lake Worth southward. The waving plumes of this giant palm are a source of constant delight to those who are privileged to see them. The huge clusters of nuts are indeed an interesting sight.
Surely we have a great and fruitful country, from the cranberry bogs of arctic Alaska to the waving cocoanut groves of Florida. This century closes and the new one begins with wonderful advances in fruit culture beyond those of a hundred years ago.
THE CENTURY’S COMMERCIAL PROGRESS
By EMORY R. JOHNSON, A.M.,
Asst. Prof. of Transportation and Commerce, University of Pennsylvania.
Commercial activity has three phases, trade, shipping, and shipbuilding. In each of these three phases of commerce the nineteenth century has witnessed a remarkable progress. The expansion of both domestic and international trade has far exceeded the anticipations of those who lived a hundred years ago; and the agencies of transportation by water, the numerous auxiliaries of commerce and the shipbuilding industries, have undergone a technical revolution so complete, and with consequences so beneficent to our social and industrial life, as to make the commercial progress of the past hundred years one of the salient features of the history of the century. We shall better appreciate the nature and scope of the commercial progress of the past hundred years, if we glance for a moment at a picture of the commerce of the world at the close of the eighteenth century.
I. MAIN FEATURES OF THE WORLD’S COMMERCE AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
A hundred years ago, the volume of trade, both domestic and foreign, was necessarily kept within proportions relatively small as compared with present traffic, because of the slowness and high costs of inland transportation. Domestic inland traffic is directly dependent upon facilities for water and land transportation, and until the railroad came into use, some seventy years ago, only those countries having numerous navigable rivers or well-developed canal systems could extend their commerce much beyond the cities and districts adjacent to tide water. In all ages since the world became civilized enough to engage in commerce, an overland traffic by caravan or wagon has been carried on; but the amount of commodities could not be large, and the kinds of goods transported were necessarily limited to articles of high value per unit of bulk or weight. Such an inland traffic as this did not establish the basis for a large coastwise or over-sea commerce.
At present, bulky commodities produced long distances from the sea-ports comprise a large portion of international traffic, and supply the coast cities with the raw materials from which they manufacture the articles they contribute to swell the volume of foreign trade. When the means were wanting for the inland transportation of these bulky commodities, only a few countries, such as Phœnicia, the Italian cities, Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the British colonies in America, could develop an important maritime commerce. During the past fifty years, the improvements in transportation have been such as to enable all industrial countries, inland as well as maritime, to engage extensively in the world’s trade. Commerce has become general; and countries like Switzerland and Saxony readily market their wares the world over.