ENGLAND 



2040 



ENGLAND 



tions, but manufactures as well; fertile soil, 

 and bordering waters which teem with fish. 



Mining. This should be noticed first, be- 

 cause it is basic. 'England has no gold, no 

 silver, no diamonds, but much of its wealth 

 depends upon its minerals, for it has in abun- 

 dance those two essentials, iron and coal. In 

 the neighborhood of one city, Newcastle, coal 

 is so plentiful that the expression "carrying 

 coals to Newcastle" has become proverbial as 

 indicating entirely foolish and unnecessary 

 labor, and in Lancashire and Yorkshire there 

 is another extensive coal region. The total 

 amount mined each year in normal times is 

 somewhat in excess of 190,000,000 tons, more 

 than one-third as much as is produced in the 

 United States. If it is not the largest producer 

 of coal, however, England is the largest ex- 

 porter, for its product does not have to be 

 carried great distances before it reaches the sea. 



The iron, fortunately, occurs not far from 

 the coal, and is thus the more readily avail- 

 able. Only the United States and Germany 

 produce more iron than does England, but so 

 great is the demand for the metal that large 

 quantities of it are imported, chiefly from 

 Spain. Of the other metals, tin, which is pro- 

 duced in considerable quantities in Cornwall 

 and Devon, has a certain historic interest, be- 

 cause of the fact that it drew to the island 

 the very first traders the Phoenicians, who 

 visited it long before the ancient Romans 

 turned their attention toward it. 



Manufactures. These are very closely con- 

 nected with the mining activities, and depend 

 upon them almost entirely. Manufacturing is 

 England's greatest industry, six times as many 

 people being engaged in manufacturing as in 

 agriculture. Naturally, the great manufactur- 

 ing centers are near the coal and iron fields, 

 and are thus to be found largely in the north. 

 There are two great branches of the industry 

 the textile and the metal, and these are clearly 

 localized. Of the textile industries, cotton 

 manufacture is most important, and even the 

 casual reader about England connects that with 

 the city of Manchester, which is the largest 

 center of this industry in the world. There is a 

 very special reason why Manchester is well- 

 fitted to cotton-spinning, for the drawing-out 

 and spinning of cotton is impossible in a dry 

 climate, and Manchester always has much 

 moisture in its air. In Yorkshire, and especially 

 at Bradford and at Leeds, is centered the 

 woolen industry, which is second only to cot- 

 ton-manufacture in importance. 



As the name Manchester . suggests cotton 

 manufacture, so do Birmingham and Sheffield 

 suggest the metal industry. All kinds of metal 

 work are produced in the former city, but in 

 the latter the output is largely steel cutlery. 

 Machinery, too, is made in great quantities 

 at Leeds and at Manchester, while in Staf- 

 fordshire and in Derbyshire much pottery is 

 manufactured from the excellent clay produced 

 in the neighborhood. An enumeration of all 

 the smaller industries, very numerous as they 

 are, is impossible; but even these, without the 

 great ones, constitute, when taken together, an 

 important factor in the manufactures of the 

 world. 



While climate, geographical position and 

 mineral wealth may account in large measure 

 for England's manufacturing supremacy, they 

 alone would never have brought it about. It 

 cannot, in fact, be understood without reference 

 to the industry and the mechanical ingenuity 

 of the English people ; for it was from English- 

 men that those great inventions came which 

 revolutionized the industrial situation through- 

 out the world the power loom, the steam en- 

 gine, the locomotive and the Bessemer process 

 of making steel. 



Agriculture. Though not primarily an agri- 

 cultural country, England has the remarkably- 

 large proportion .of seventy-six per cent of its 

 land under cultivation, while in some counties 

 the ratio is as high as nine-tenths. The most 

 advanced methods of cultivation are practiced, 

 and this fact, together with the extensive use 

 of fertilizers, keeps this long-cultivated land 

 in a high state of fertility. Of the cereals, 

 wheat, oats and barley are most ^extensively 

 grown, and it is noteworthy that in some sec- 

 tions the yield of wheat to the acre averages 

 nearly forty bushels. Green crops and root 

 crops for forage; hops, fruit, especially apples 

 and garden vegetables, are largely raised, but 

 with all its fertile soil, its industry and its in- 

 tensive farming, England is compelled to im- 

 port large quantities of foodstuffs. 



The system of land-tenure is different from 

 that of most countries. The great proportion 

 of the land is in large estates, which are sub- 

 divided into small farms and rented to tenant 

 farmers. This might, to an inhabitant of a 

 country where most owners farm their own 

 land, give an impression of transience, but it 

 is the custom for families to remain generation 

 after generation on the same land until a feel- 

 ing almost of ownership is developed. Every 

 traveler in England tells of the beauty of its 



