OUR IMPORTS AND THOSE OF GREAT BRITAIN COMPARED
Similar differences with respect to our import trade and that of Great Britain are observable. Our imports do not amount to more than from $600,000,000 to $800,000,000 a year. For the year ended June 30, 1897, they were $765,000,000. For the year ended June 30, 1898, they were $616,000,000. The imports of Great Britain, on the other hand, amount to over $2,000,000,000 a year. For the year 1896 they were $2,210,000,000. For the year 1897 they were $2,225,000,000. But, while our imports, with the exception of coffee, sugar, tea, fruits, and fish, consist chiefly of manufactured articles, such as woollen goods, cotton goods, silk goods, and iron and steel goods, with only moderate amounts of raw material (for example, hides, skins, and furs, $41,000,000; raw silk, $32,000,000; raw wool, $17,000,000), Great Britain, besides importing coffee, sugar, tea, fruits, and fish, the same as we do, and manufactured goods to a far greater amount than we do (not less than $500,000,000 annually), imports likewise an enormous quantity of raw material for her manufactures, all duty free, and a still more enormous quantity of breadstuffs, provisions, etc., also all duty free. For example, for the year 1897 her imports of raw materials for her manufactures were not less than $750,-000,000, while her imports of duty-free food products were not less than $825,000,000. The difference between the two countries, therefore, so far as their foreign trades are concerned is simply this: The United States is an immense exporter of food-stuffs, and also of raw materials for foreign manufacture; but for the raw materials for her own manufacture she depends principally upon her own products. In comparison she is only a moderate exporter of manufactured goods. Great Britain, on the other hand, is an enormous importer and consumer of food-stuffs and also of raw materials for her manufactures. She, in fact, depends very largely upon other countries for her food products and her raw materials, and obtains them wherever she can, very largely from the United States. She is also an enormous exporter of manufactures.
OUR COTTON PRODUCTION AND COTTON EXPORT
The one article of export that is of greatest importance in our commerce is cotton. The production of cotton in the United States is enormous. It is not far short of 5,000,000,000 pounds per annum. This is probably four times the amount produced upon the whole globe elsewhere. Our export amounts annually to about 4,000,000,000 pounds, with a total value of about $240,000,000. Our greatest competitors in the world's cotton markets are Egypt and India. The export of cotton from Egypt amounts to $50,000,000 annually. The export of cotton from India amounts to $45,000,000 annually. At least one half of our export of cotton goes to Great Britain. Our next greatest customers are (in order) Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia. We send about $7,500,000 worth annually to Japan, and $4,000,000 worth annually to Canada. All our southeastern States produce cotton, but the States that produce it most plentifully are (in order) Texas (about one third of the whole), Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. The area under cultivation in the whole country is about 21,000,000 acres, which is about one sixth of the area devoted to corn, wheat, and oats, or one half the area devoted to hay. The areas of greatest cotton production are (1) the "Yazoo bottom," a strip on the left bank of the Mississippi extending from Memphis to Vicksburg, and (2) the upper part of the right bank of the Tombigbee. The productivity of cotton is much higher in the United States than it is in India, averaging not far short of 200 pounds per acre, as against less than 100 pounds in India. In India, however, the cotton crop has been grown on the same soil for ages, whereas in the United States the practice is to substitute new soils for old ones as soon as crops begin to fail. On the other hand, the United States cotton crop is much less per acre than the crop in Egypt. There the yield per acre is from 300 pounds to 500 pounds. The remedy for this defect of productivity in our cotton crop as compared with that of Egypt is manuring. Where the manuring is properly attended to our cotton crop is comparable with Egypt's. But the cotton of Egypt is of better quality than the great mass of the cotton crop of the United States (the "upland" cotton crop). On the other hand in the low, flat islands off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina a species of cotton grows ("sea-island" cotton) which is the finest in the world, its fibres being the longest, finest, and straightest, of all cotton fibres produced anywhere, and the most beautiful in appearance in the mass. Of this "sea-island" cotton about three to four million dollars' worth is exported annually at a price averaging from two and one fourth to two and three fourth times the value per pound of the "upland" cotton. The great cotton ports of our country are (in order of amount of exportation) New Orleans, Galveston, Savannah, New York, Charleston, Mobile, and Wilmington. New Orleans' export is about a third of the whole, and Galveston's about a fifth.
OUR PRODUCTION AND EXPORT OF BREADSTUFFS
The item in the official returns that figures largest for exports is that which is set down as breadstuffs. This term includes wheat, corn, oats, rye, and other grains, and the flours or meals made from these. For the year ending June 30, 1898, our total export of breadstuffs was $334,000,000. This is an enormous increase over the year before, when the amount was not quite $200,000,000.[5] A large part of this increase was due to the high prices for breadstuffs which prevailed in the European markets during the past autumn and winter, but a part of the increase was due to an increased acreage and to good crops. The main products that composed this vast exportation were: wheat, $146,000,000; wheat flour, $70,000,000; corn, $75,000,000; cornmeal, $2,000,000; oats and oatmeal, $22,500,000; rye and rye flour, $9,000,000, and barley, $5,500,000. The magnitude of our breadstuffs exportation can be judged from the magnitude and importance of our exports of wheat and flour as compared with those of other countries. Our average wheat export is two and one half times that of Russia, four and one third times that of Argentina, five and one half times that of India, and almost twenty-five times that of Canada, while it is also four and one half times that of all other countries in the world combined. Our flour export ($70,000,000) is without a rival. The export from Canada is now not much more than $1,500,000 a year, and the export from Hungary not more than $2,500,000 a year, and these are the only countries with which we have to compete in the western European markets. Still it must be remembered that Hungarian flour, owing to the dryness of the climate in which it is made, is the best in the world, while the flour of Canada made from Manitoba hard wheat is alike unsurpassed. As a rule much more than one half of our total exports of breadstuffs goes to Great Britain. Germany is our next best customer, but her imports of our breadstuffs are not more that a fifth to a tenth of those of Great Britain. France comes next, but her importation of our breadstuffs is still more uncertain, ranging from a half to a hundredth of that of Great Britain. Our other principal customers for our breadstuffs are (1) the other states of Europe, (2) Canada, (3) the countries of South America, (4) the West Indies, (5) Hongkong, (6) the islands of the Pacific, and (7) British Africa. Our exportation of breadstuffs to Japan and China (direct)[6] is still inconsiderable. Since the close of the War of the Rebellion our exportation of wheat has increased thirtyfold and our exportation of flour fifteenfold. Our chief wheat-growing States are Minnesota and California, each with about 50,000,000 bushels a year; then Kansas, North Dakota, Illinois, and South Dakota, each with about 30,000,000 bushels a year; and then Ohio, Indiana, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Michigan. The best wheat is grown in the deep black soil, rich in organic matter, of the Red River valley of Minnesota, and in the dry, sunny climate of California. The total yield for 1897 was 530,000,000 bushels, which was about 70,000,000 bushels more than recent averages. The estimate for this year (1898) is over 600,000,000 bushels, which was also the yield for 1891. The total area sown to wheat was for several years about 35,000,000 acres, but the average is now increased to about 40,000,000 acres. Large as is the gross production of our wheat, however, the yield per acre is somewhat small, being only from 12 to 13 bushels as against 18 bushels in Ontario, 20 in Manitoba, 26½ in New Zealand, and 30 in Great Britain. In fact, the wheat yield per acre is lowest in the United States of all the great wheat-producing countries of the world, except Australia (7 to 11½), Italy (10½), Germany (10¼), India (9¼), and Russia (8). But far greater than our production of wheat is our production of corn. Of corn we have nearly 85,000,000 acres under cultivation and a production of nearly 2,500,000,000 bushels. Our export of corn, however, is proportionately not large, and figures only to about 210,000,000 bushels a year, with a value (including cornmeal) of about $76,000,000. As is well known, Chicago is the great commercial centre of the continent for breadstuffs. New York is the great port of export for the Atlantic seaboard, San Francisco for the Pacific seaboard. Duluth is the great receiving point for the wheat of the Red River valley and the northern Mississippi. Buffalo is the great point where the wheat brought down from Chicago, Duluth, etc., in barges, "whale-backs," and immense propellers, is trans-shipped to the small boats of the Erie Canal for carriage to New York. Minneapolis is the great milling point of the continent, its mills being the largest and most capacious in the world.
FOOTNOTES:
[5]For the year ending June 30, 1899, the amount was $274,000,000.