The foreign trade of the United States; its character, organization and methods . in 1900 to per cent in the latter year manufactures constituted of thetotal exports. The volume of the leading agricultural export, cotton,rose from 3,100,000,000 pounds valued at $241,000,000 in1900 to 4,760,000,000 pounds valued at $610,475,000 in1914. The exportation of foodstuffs in this, as in former peri-ods, shows great fluctuations. The increase from $92,-000,000 in 1870 to $459,000,000 in 1880 reflected thewonderful development of our Western farms. Then thisclass of exports fell to $35
The foreign trade of the United States; its character, organization and methods . in 1900 to per cent in the latter year manufactures constituted of thetotal exports. The volume of the leading agricultural export, cotton,rose from 3,100,000,000 pounds valued at $241,000,000 in1900 to 4,760,000,000 pounds valued at $610,475,000 in1914. The exportation of foodstuffs in this, as in former peri-ods, shows great fluctuations. The increase from $92,-000,000 in 1870 to $459,000,000 in 1880 reflected thewonderful development of our Western farms. Then thisclass of exports fell to $356,000,000 in 1890, and againbroke all records in 1900, when foodstuffs valued at overhalf a billion dollars went out of the country. In 1910 wenote a decrease, with recovery in 1914. Variations incrops and prices are largely responsible for these extremefluctuations. When we have a bumper crop our surplusis naturally larger than when the season is a poor one, withpartial or total crop failures in many parts of the coun-try. Likewise, when the prices paid for agricultural prod-. 1890 1900 1910 1914 1916 1913 GROWTH OF THE EXPORT TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES, 18S0-1918 21 22 FOREIGN TRADE OF UNITED STATES ucts are high the fanners are encouraged to make everyeffort to produce and market big crops, while when pricesare low and transportation costs high the reverse is thecase. Because the exportation of foodstuffs in 1914 was21 per cent less than in 1900, we are not justified in comingto the conclusion that we are approaching the point atwhich we can no longer provide a great surplus of food-stuffs for export. The astounding increase in the exporta-tion of foodstuffs since 1914 in response to the higherprices and greater demand caused by the World Warshows that the United States may still be looked upon asthe granary of the world. The difficulty of procuringfarm labor, wasteful and expensive methods of marketingfarm produce, combined with other factors, resulted indiscouraging increa
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