EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 21 



reach third phice are hat. cotton, and tobacco. Wheat is fourth in 

 vahie, and has been exceeded in this respect in three years. 



The crops of this year compare with the average of the previous 

 five years more favorably than they do with single years when results 

 were highest. In the list of crops that had a production above tho 

 five-year average are cotton, rice, buckwheat, beet sugar, and cane 

 sugar. 



In value of crops, the five-year average was overtopped by corn, cot- 

 ton, hay, oats, barlej^, potatoes, buckwheat, rye, flaxseed, hops, and 

 beet and cane sugar. 



FOEEIGN TRADE IN AGEICULTURAL PRODUCTS. 



BALANCE IN FAVOR OF EXPORTS. 



CAUSED BY THE COTTON SURPLUS. 



The large surplus of value of exports of domestic agricultural 

 products over the value of imports of agricultural products, which 

 has been the result of this country's foreign trade for many years, 

 seemed to be threatened by the declining surpluses of 1909 and 1910 ; 

 and by the same cause the balance of trade in favor of exports of 

 all commodities, agricultural and otherwise, was threatened with ex- 

 tinction unless manufactures were exported in values large enough to 

 prevent. In the fiscal j^ear 1908 the balance in favor of this country 

 was $488,000,000 in agricultural products ; the next year it was $271,- 

 000,000 ; in 1910 the balance fell to $198,000,000. During the same 

 years the balance in the trade of commodities other than agricultural 

 in favor of exports fell from $178,000,000 to $77,000,000 the next 

 year, and turned to a balance in favor of imports in 1910. 



This tendency was sharply arrested in 1911, when the farmers' 

 balance of foreign trade rose to somewhere near its former propor- 

 tions. It was $366,000,000. In the same year the balance in favor 

 of exports in the trade of commodities other than agricultural reached 

 $156,000,000. 



As the matter has stood for many years, the balance of trade in 

 favor of exports, lioth of agricultural products and of all products, 

 is mostly, if not entirely, due to raw cotton. That is to say, the value 

 of the cotton exports are more or less approximate to the balance. 



EXPORTS. 

 OVER A BILLION DOLLARS. 



Three times has the total value of exports of domestic farm 

 products been greater than a billion dollars — in 1907, 1908. and in 

 1911. The total for the last year— $1,031,000,000— is exceeded only 



