GERMANY 



2471 



GERMANY 



The metal industries in all their branches of 

 steel and iron rolling, the making of machinery 

 and the manufacture of hardware and instru- 

 ments have experienced the largest growth. 

 The products of the great Krupp gun works, 

 which employed over thirty thousand workers, 

 are too famous, especially since 1914, to need 

 mention, but in many kinds of smaller metal 

 goods, as cutlery, tools and instruments, the 

 Germans long enjoyed an equal superiority. 

 Their scientific instruments, in particular, are 

 considered the most accurate in the world. 

 Beet sugar, of which more is produced than in 

 any other country; beer, of which an average 

 of over twenty-two gallons to each person is 

 consumed annually; chemicals; .great ships; 

 toys, clocks and carved woodenware in the 

 making of all these Germany excelled. The 

 statement made at the opening of this article 

 may be emphasized here: all these facts refer 

 to Germany before the outbreak of the great 

 war in 1914, for every phase of its life has been 

 immeasurably changed since then. 



An interesting feature of the industrial life of 

 Germany is the compulsory insurance by which 

 workers were made safe against loss of income 

 through sickness, old age or accident. Part of 

 the fee a very small part was paid by the 

 person insured; the remainder was shared be- 

 tween the employer and the government. Since 

 almost one-half of the population derive their 

 living from the manufacturing industries, it 

 may be seen that this was a provision of great 

 importance. 



Agriculture. Time was when Germany 

 raised practically all the foodstuffs it needed, 

 but in recent years, since many have turned 

 to industrial life and less than a third of the 

 population is engaged in agriculture, much 

 food must be imported. About one-half the 

 entire land surface is actually under tillage, 

 and of this area a large part is divided into 

 very small farms, millions of these being less 

 than five acres in extent. But the German 

 farmer is painstaking and intelligent, and by 

 the use of modern methods and machinery he 

 wrests from the soil, in some places none too 

 fertile, a fair living. The least fertile portions 

 of the country are in the north and northeast. 



Crops are widely varied, but in the country 

 as a whole cereals, potatoes and hay predomi- 

 nate. Of the cereals, rye is the most impor- 

 tant, and rye bread is as distinctly the staple 

 food of the poorer people of Germany as is 

 wheat bread in Canada and the United States. 

 Over a million acres ' are under sugar beets, 



which form the prevailing crop of North Ger- 

 many, while in the south and west, especially 

 in the valleys of the Rhine, Main, Moselle 

 and Neckar, the vine is the most characteristic 

 growth, Rhine wines being famous throughout 

 the world. Flax in the central region, hops, 

 corn and fruits in the south, and almost every- 

 where wheat, barley, rye and oats these are 

 the outstanding crops. The government has 

 done much to encourage agriculture, and a 

 spirit of intelligent cooperation among the 

 farmers themselves has worked for progress. 



Stock raising is of considerable importance, 

 for Germany has much partially drained marsh 

 land with a rich growth of grass. Of the do- 

 mestic animals swine are the most numerous 

 and cattle the next, the number of sheep in 

 the empire having declined three-fourths within 

 the last three decades. 



Transportation and Commerce. With its 

 6,000 miles of naturally navigable rivers, 1,400 

 miles of canalized rivers, and 1,500 miles of 

 canals, Germany has an abundance of water- 

 ways. Some of the canals are famous, notably 

 the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal across the peninsula 

 of Jutland, which connects the Baltic with the 

 North Sea. See KAISER WILHELM CANAL. 

 The empire is not dependent for transportation 

 upon waterways alone, for it has one of the 

 largest and most complete railway systems in 

 the world. Only Russia and the United States, 

 far vaster in extent, exceed Germany's total 

 of more than 59,000 miles, and only Great 

 Britain surpasses it in the length of railway 

 compared with its area. Berlin is the chief 

 railway center. Over ninety-two per cent of 

 the railway mileage is in the hands of the 

 state governments, each state controlling the 

 lines which have the greater part of their 

 course within it. During the war the railroads 

 were practically worn out. 



Commerce. No other country except Great 

 Britain had so large a foreign trade as had 

 Germany up to August, 1914. The remark- 

 able industrial development brought about a 

 corresponding commercial growth, and in recent 

 years the total foreign commerce has been 

 about $4,600,000,000. Of this amount the im- 

 ports made up somewhat more than half, and 

 in this Germany differs from the United States, 

 which exports more than it receives. Fully 

 one-half of the imports were raw materials for 

 its factories, and one-third consisted in food- 

 stuffs, while the exports were largely manufac- 

 tured goods textiles, metal products, chemi- 

 cals, certain made foods, toys and small wares. 



