76 



A HE IRRIGATION AGE. 



the present year furnished a larger share 

 of our sugar importations than any other 

 single part of the world, the total number 

 of pounds from the East Indies alone being 

 for the 10 months ending with October, 

 1,078,907,548, out of a total of 3,767,756,981 

 pounds. Coffee, of which our importations 

 are growing constantly and rapidly, 

 amounting to about 850 million pounds an- 

 ually as against an average of about 550 

 million pounds in the earlier years of the 

 decade, is successfully grown in all of the 

 islands in question, and at one time was a 

 very important crop in Cuba as well as at 

 present in Porto Rico, Hawaii and the 

 Philippines. Fiber, of which the impor- 

 tations in the present year will amount to 

 20 million dollars in value, can readily be 

 grown in all of the islands, the Philippines 

 already supplying that most important 

 feature of our fiber importations, Manila 

 hemp, which alone in the present year 

 will amount to about 6 million dollars in 

 value. While two or three of the larger 

 items of our tropical and sub-tropical im- 

 ports, rubber, silk and tea, are not pro- 

 duced in any considerable quantities in the 

 islands in question at present, experiments 

 which have been made in those islands, 

 especially in tea and silk, indicate at least 

 that their production is possible and may 

 prove entirely practicable with further 

 experiment. Even without these items, 

 the list of importations of tropical products 

 which it is well known can be produced in 

 these islands , suggests the possibility that 

 fully 200 million dollars which the United 

 States has been heretofore expending out- 

 side her own territory and population for 

 products which her people must have and 

 do not produce can, in no distant future, 

 be distributed in these islands in exchange 

 for their supplies whose production will 

 doubtless be stimulated by the introduc- 

 tion of American capital and American 

 methods. 



The following table shows the imports 

 of tropical and sub-tropical products into 

 the United States in the 10 months ending 

 with October, 1899, compared with 1898, 

 arranged in the order of magnitude: 



Ten months ending Oct. 31. 



1898 1899 



Dollars Dollars 



Suear 65.078,5)09 94,230.066 



Cotree. . ..." 46,5-7,070 49,116,947 



Silk 22000,071) 



India rubber 2u,2'2;>.724 



H ibers 14.2o2,i)2s 



Fruits & nuts 11.0W.I71 



Tobacco 8,788,721 



Tea 7,822.952' 



Gums 4,450.375 



Cocoa & chocolate 8,408,023 



Kice 3,347.290 



Spices 2,05)1.451 



Oabiuet woods 1,517898 



Indigo 1.712.328 



Licorice root 1,278.548 



Corkwood 962.2 15 



Olive oil 831 503 



Ivory 538,344 



Dye woods 1.072, 839 



32,615,625 



27,936,145 



17,514.902 



15.687,583 



11.237,653 



8.635 638 



5,129.5)89 



4,832,9:>6 



3,125,390 



2,516.990 



1.0*7.765 



1,679,967 



1,230,937 



1,097,268 



1,018.532 



645,192 



635,289 



Total 



216,888,455 



280,624,871 



The mining interests of 

 Africa, especially the wonder- 

 ful gold and diamond mines 

 which have attracted so much attention, 

 are the supject of a chapter in the mono- 

 graph just prepared by the Treasury Bu- 

 reau of Statistics, on Commercial Africa 

 in 1899. Much of the recently rapid de- 

 velopment of Africa, especially in the 

 southern part where the greatest rapidity 

 of development has occurred, is due to the 

 discovery and development of extremely 

 valuable mineral deposits. The most val- 

 uable of these are gold and diamonds, 

 though incidentally it may be mentioned 

 that the iron, coal, and other mineral de- 

 posits of south and southeast Africa give 

 promise of great value when wealth-seek- 

 ing man t has time to turn his attention 

 from the gold mines to those which prom- 

 ise less rapid, but perhaps equally certain 

 profits. 



That the gold and diamond mines of 

 South Africa have been, and still are, 

 wonderfully profitably, however, is beyond 

 question. The Kimberley diamond mines, 

 which are located in British territory just 

 outside the boundaries of the Orange Free 

 State and about 600 miles from Cape Town, 

 now supply 98 per cent, of the diamonds of 

 commerce, although their existence was 

 unknown prior to 1867 and the mines have 

 thus been in operation but about 30 years. 



A few years ago the members 

 Prophecy, of the Department of Agricul- 

 ture at Washington were 

 about the only people who had any confi- 

 dence in the sugar beet industry. By the 

 masses it was regarded as an experimeut 

 to ba indulged in by visionaries. But the 

 department made the prediction that in 

 the course of time the United States would 



