Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/789

UNITED STATES. sufficient quantities—and products which can be produced more economically in other regions. The latter comprise mainly food products and materials for use in manufacturing. A considerable portion, however, consists in manufactures in which cheaply paid European and Oriental hand-labor enters largely, and with which highly paid American labor cannot compete. It also consists of products of highly skilled labor, skill which accrues with the long establishment of an industry and which Americans have not yet acquired. The following table shows the growth of the export trade:

It is noteworthy that after a decade in which no progress was made in the exports of agricultural products (1880-1890), they have again rapidly advanced. The agricultural group includes a number of products usually classed as manufactured, such as flour, meats, etc. Of the agricultural exports, those intended as food are in the aggregate far in the lead. The three principal exports of food in the fiscal year 1903, with their values, were as follows: breadstuffs, $221,242,285; meat and dairy products, $179,839,714; and animals, $34,781,193. Cotton is the largest single item of export, and ranks second to the large group of breadstuffs. The most important items among the breadstuffs are wheat and flour, the average exports of which for the period 1867-72 were 35,500,000 bushels, or 15.53 per cent. of the total production. The exports then rose until the period 1879-83, when the average was 157,566,000 bushels, or 34.91 per cent. of the total production. For the next ten years the exports were much less, absolutely and relatively, but increased during the period 1894-99 to an average of 170,098,000 bushels, or 34.63 per cent. European countries have always entertained a prejudice against corn as a food, but this prejudice seems to have weakened in recent years. The exportation of corn, including corn meal, increased from an average of 14,200,000 bushels in the period 1867-72 to an average of 127,400,000 bushels in the period 1894-99. The exports of the earlier period constituted 1.54 per cent. of the total production, and in the latter 6.56 per cent.

Thus corn bids fair soon to become a rival of wheat as an export, in value as well as in volume. The greater part of the exportation in meats consists of hog products, amounting in the year 1903 to $112,110,602, as against $38,470,958 for beef products. The exports of hog products increased rapidly with the development of the slaughtering industry, the total value having increased from $15,309,647 in 1870 to $86,687,858 in 1878, after which they fluctuated about that figure and did not show any tendency to rise until 1898. The exports of bacon in 1903 were valued at $22,178,525, hams at $25,712,633, and lard at $50,854,504, the latter having made a large gain since 1898. Pork is shipped mainly in the salted or pickled form. Exports of beef did not attain any great growth until after the recent facilities for chilling and transporting meats had been introduced. With these improvements there has been a change from salted to fresh beef in the shipments, the latter variety constituting nearly three-fourths of the total beef shipment in 1903. In that year there were over $20,000,000 worth of ‘other meat’ products exported, over one-half of which was oleomargarine. The value of dairy products exported for that year was only $4,775,582. The exports of live animals consist chiefly of cattle. Their exportation did not take firm hold until 1879. In the year 1890 there was a striking advance in the shipment of cattle, but since that year there have been no decided tendencies toward increase or decrease. The value of exports of cattle in 1903 was $29,848,936. The Anglo-Boer War greatly increased the exportation of horses and mules, the exports of the former in 1902 being valued at $10,048,046.

The exports of cotton in 1903 amounted to 3,543,043,022 pounds (value $316,180,429), which was about two and one-half times the quantity exported in 1876. For most of the intervening years the per cent. of the total crop exported has been between sixty-five and seventy, and there is no tendency to change the ratio. Among other agricultural products exported, the most important are: tobacco, valued in 1903 at $35,250,893;