The manufacture of matches in Germany has become so important an industry that the factories are now using every year about 5,500,000 cubic feet of aspen wood, of which about three-fifths is imported from Russia.
Bavaria alone has twenty-six lead-pencil factories, which employ from 9,000 to 10,000 workmen, and produce on an average 4,320,000 lead pencils and crayons every week. It is a curious fact that the use of German lead pencils in all the public offices and schools of France is forbidden by law.[{54}]
THE NEWS OF ALL NATIONS.
A Great Cotton Year in England.
Statistics issued from Manchester, England, by the International Cotton Federation, show that during the year ended August 31, 13,957,000 bales of American cotton were used, compared with 11,559,000 bales in the previous year.
The spinners spun more cotton than in any year since the great boom of 1907.
Of Egyptian cotton 701,985 bales were used, considerably more than in either of the two preceding years.