September 5, 1902.] 



SCIENCE. 



379 



ways have grown from 52,000 miles in 1870 

 to practically 200,000 miles at the present 

 time, and rates for i-ail transportation have 

 fallen to about one third the rates of 1870. 

 The result of all tins is that the United 

 States has become the greatest exporting 

 nation in the world, having risen from 

 fourth place in 1870 to first place in 1901. 

 The value of our exports was, in 1870, 393 

 millions ; in 1901, 1,487 millions ; imports, in 

 1870, 436 millions; in 1901, 823 millions. 



The causes of this development in ex- 

 ports are to be found in the fact that the 

 United States is the world's largest pro- 

 ducer of the great articles required by man 

 for his daily life. The chief requirements 

 of man are food, clothing, heat, light and 

 manufactures; and of all these the United 

 States is the world's largest producer: for 

 food, wheat, corn and meats ; for clothing, 

 cotton ; for heat and light, co^al and petrol- 

 eum; for manufacturing, iron, copper and 

 lead; while in manufactures actually pro- 

 duced the United States exceeds any other 

 nation. 



This commanding position in the world's 

 commerce seems likely to be retained by the 

 United States. The natural production 

 shows little if any signs of abatement, while 

 we may reasonably expect that the develop- 

 ment of science and invention and the ap- 

 plication of American energy will still 

 further reduce the cost of manufacture and 

 transportation. This high standing of the 

 United States as an exporting nation should 

 be welcomed by the commercialwolrld rather 

 than antagonized. The commercial world 

 buys our products because it requires them 

 for daily use and because it can obtain 

 them more readily and cheaply from the 

 United States than from any other part of 

 the world. The effect of the refusal of 

 Europe to purchase from the United States 

 any of the great articles of which we fur- 

 nish so large a proportion of the world's 

 supply would be to cause an advance in the 



price of those articles in other parts of the 

 world, while the fact that the United States 

 in 1901 sold to Europe alone more manu- 

 factures than she ever sold to the entire 

 world in any year prior to 1895 shows the 

 progress that American manufacturers are 

 making. 



It must also be expected that our im- 

 ports will continue to grow. The reasons 

 are coincident with our growth in manu- 

 factures. While the United States is the 

 world's greatest prodi;cer in the chief ele- 

 ments required in manufacturing, it does 

 not produce certain articles of tropical and 

 subtropical growth of which the manufac- 

 turers are requiring constantly increasing 

 quantities, such as raw silk, fibers, Egyptian 

 cotton, india-rubber and many other articles 

 of this character. Add to this the tropical 

 requirements for food, such as coffee,cocoa, 

 tea and such portions of the sugar and trop- 

 ical fruits as are hot produced at home, and 

 it is apparent that the importations must 

 increase, and especially those from the 

 tropics. This fact of our growing depend- 

 ence upon the tropics suggests that the 

 events of the past four years have been of 

 advantage in the fact that they have 

 brought under the American flag an area 

 capable of producing a large share of these 

 tropical requirements, and taking an equal 

 (luantity of our products in exchange there- 

 for. 



New Light on the Per Capita Wheat Con- 

 sumption Problem: Henry Farquhar, 

 U. S. Census Office, Washington. 

 The census results recently published 

 from the flouring mills of the country in 

 the year ending with May, 1900, include 

 amounts of flour produced and of wheat 

 used in its production, which, taken in con- 

 nection with amounts exported during the 

 same period, furnish an index to the coun- 

 try's consumption of flour, and hence of 

 wheat. The consumption so ascertained 



