There are men who will tell you that bees yield fabulous profits, and they are honest. But I have long watched the reports, and while we sometimes hear of tremendous yields of honey in some locality, we frequently get no report from the same section the next year, although the season may be a fair one. Bee-keepers are no way an exception to other people. If they get a big yield they do not put their light under a bushel; but when only a fair yield is obtained it is a hard matter to get even a report. Women are not the sole possessors or owners in fee simple of all the vanity the world possesses.

Keeping bees is in one respect unlike farming, viz.: a farmer may raise 100 acres of wheat on his farm and his neighbor just across the road may raise 100 acres too, and so on indefinitely among all the farmers; and yet each one will raise just as much wheat as though his neighbor did not sow wheat at all.

In Michigan several bee-keepers have tried to keep bees as a special and exclusive business; but as their families grew larger some other business became a necessity, and now, I think, it may be safely said that there is not a special and exclusive bee-keeper in the State.

AGRICULTURE IN OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE.

BY G. H. HARROWER.

[Read at the Otsego and Chelsea Institutes.]

I propose to speak of the foreign trade in the surplus of our agricultural products. I shall treat the subject both historically and in its present economic and political aspects. The importance of this branch of our export trade cannot be over-estimated. In the year 1882 our exports of merchandise amounted to the sum of $733,000,000, of which cotton, breadstuffs, provisions, and live animals made up more than $536,000,000. While iron and steel, in all forms, amounted to only a little more than two per cent. of the total values sold abroad, and oils to about seven per cent.; agriculture, in the items mentioned above, furnished seventy-three per cent. It is the products of the farm that pay by far the greatest share of our annual indebtedness for goods imported from abroad. Again, as compared with the home demand, the foreign demand is large and deeply concerns American agriculture; for, while the figures are not so striking in other items, we have recently been sending abroad about one-quarter of our wheat crop and seven-tenths of our cotton crop. A knowledge of the facts of so great a trade is necessary to an understanding of the character and conditions of our foreign commerce. Especially at the present moment is this true, in view of the recent action of European governments in regard to the matter. The rapid increase of American competition is viewed with alarm in many quarters, and various means have been resorted to against this rival. Taken also in connection with our own high tariff policy, the export trade has given rise to no little economical discussion among European statesmen and economists. There have been prohibition of trade, commissions of inquiry, "Fair Trade" leagues, and diplomatic correspondence.

While I speak congress and the newspapers are discussing the question how to overcome certain difficulties that France and Germany and other

European governments are putting in the way of a part of this trade. They say that our swine products are dangerous to health, and have determined to shut them out, whereas we are quite sure that their assertions are groundless, that they put them forward simply because they dare not avow their real object in prohibiting the importation and thus making food dearer than it otherwise would be. What is the true explanation of such action on the part of foreign governments will appear later on. That action is regarded, and rightly regarded, as a serious blow at our foreign commerce. It not only checks the natural overflow of a considerable portion of our surplus products, leading to a healthy regulation of prices; but it also threatens to deprive us of a means of meeting a large part of our indebtedness abroad. That is to say, if we buy we must sell, just as the reverse is true, that if we would sell we must buy. In the long run, our exports pay for our imports. Now, in an average of recent years the value of our swine products exported amounts to over 80 millions of dollars per annum. It is this vast item against which foreign attacks are being made. It is not strange, then, that congress is talking of various schemes by which to bring about the removal of the restrictions or prohibitions of this trade. It will be convenient to postpone this topic for the present and at once take up the growth and present dimensions of the trade under review.

HISTORICAL REVIEW.

Raw cotton has for eighty years been an important item in our list of exports. Sixty years ago the value of the average annual exportation was more than twenty-five million dollars. From 1835 to 1850 in only three years did the exports of cotton fall below fifty millions; while at the latter year it had risen to seventy-two millions, and in the next year, 1851, it rose with a bound to one hundred and twelve millions. The civil war greatly checked this trade, but with marvelous rapidity it recovered after the restoration of peace. The greatest crop before 1859 amounted to 3,500,000 bales, but under the better conditions of freedom of labor brought by the war and emancipation, the culture of cotton thrived so amazingly that in 1882 there was harvested a crop of over 7,000,000 bales*-just about twice as great as any crop before the war. Of the enormous crop of 1882 the value of the exports amounted to $247,000,000. This one item alone constituted over 30 per cent. of our total domestic exports.

We sell every year to foreign buyers about 70 per cent of our whole cotton crop. Indeed, ever since the great stimulous to this branch of agriculture given by the invention of Whitney's cotton gin, with scarcely any exception, we have disposed of two-thirds of our production. In the year 1840 the exportation rose to nearly 85 per cent.

Next to America in supplying the world with this important staple come India, Egypt, and Brazil, but a long way behind; for two-thirds of the raw cotton worked up in European factories is the product of our southern plantations. England is by far the heaviest buyer of this, as of all our raw materials. The statistics of the Treasury Department for 1882 show that English merchants took fully 70 per cent. of all raw cotton exported. A small part of this passes through English dealers as raw material to other nations of Europe, though by far the greater part is first subjected to one or

*This was an advance of 29 per cent over the previous year, when 5,500,000 bales were harvested. Of this latter crop, which was a short one, over 3,500,000 bales were sent abroad, the exports being valued at $200,000,000.

more processes of manufacture. England buys only one-third as much of this material from other cotton producers as from us. Her government is making constant efforts to stimulate the culture in India, but it will be many years before any very formidable competition is to be looked for in that quarter. The next largest item in what we send abroad is wheat, both in the grain and in flour. During the year ending June 30, 1883, we sold to the amount of $174,703,830. The facts of this trade are most remarkable, and have excited universal attention. Of our cereals wheat is easily king in the export trade. For two hundred years we have had a surplus to sell, the only exceptions worth mention occurring in the remarkably short crops from 1836 to 1839, in consequence of which we imported wheat from Germany and Holland. For sixty years wheat has been a leading factor in settling with foreign nations for our imports. The total amount of our exports of wheat and wheat flour for the sixty-three years ending June 30, 1883, was over 2,000,000,000 bushels; but more than one-half of this was sent during the last eight years. Expressed in money values the amount was over $26,000,000,000 dollars.

About one-fifth of our wheat export is now in the form of flour, but these proportions have existed only in recent years. Up to 1840 over 90 per cent. was in the form of flour. Grain shipments then began to show a large relative increase, and for the fifty-five years closing with 1875, of the total exports of wheat, nearly one-half was in the kernel. In 1880 flour formed only 15 per cent., but it has since risen slightly above that.*

*

*

The recent increase in flour exports, viewed by itself, has been very striking, and some have been led to prophesy that we should once more do the greater part of the milling of our surplus wheat on this side of the Atlantic, but a study of the statistics of the trade will show that it is uncertain business, basing predictions upon the gains of any short period. It appears that "the gains and losses have, from year to year, been playing a sort of seesaw game. That the American milling trade is developing very rapidly, admits of no question; and with this growth there will doubtless continue to be a steady gain in the amount of flour yearly put upon the European markets. One of the most potent causes of the growth of the export flour trade is the improvement in the science of milling in this country," by which "our millers have adapted their flours to the wants of the old world,"t

*

*

*

The value of our wheat crop is very much less than that of the corn crop, but the value of corn and corn meal exported, does not much, if at all, exceed one-fifth of that of the wheat exported. However, it is next in importance, and is, in itself, very considerable. As in the case of wheat, so here the growth has been most remarkable in the last eight years, the aggregate value for that period exceeding by over a hundred millions that of the preceding fifty-five years. Perhaps this gain is partly due to the patriotic efforts of the Secretary of State to introduce the American hoe-cake and Johnnie cake to our European friends by means of the corn lunch counter he was reported to have set up at the last Paris Exposition. In 1881-82 we sold abroad, in the form of bacon, hams, lard, and mess pork, to the amount of $82,500,000. This is properly to be taken into account in estimating our exports of corn. Of corn and corn meal we have recently sent abroad to the amount of about $50,000,000 yearly.

*I am indebted for many of the facts stated above, and in other parts of this paper, to an article entitled "Our Exports of Breadstuffs," which was published in the International Review for November, 1881.

†From the article already referred to, "Our Export of Breadstuffs."

I can only briefly refer to the remaining items in the account. We sold butter and cheese in 1881-2 in value $17,000,000; salted beef, $4,000,000; other preserved meats, $4,250,000. The exportation of cattle and fresh beef is a recent venture, and the trade has thus far been almost entirely with England. The Treasury Department report on the commerce of the world, issued this last year, shows that the values of fresh beef exported, rose from $12,000 in 1874 to more than $9,500,000 in 1881. Present indications are that this will be far surpassed this year. England took from us in 1878 (the first year for which the figures appear) eight million dollars' worth of horned cattle. The amount was eighteen millions in 1880; and though the condition of our cattle ranges caused a great falling off the next two years, during the past year the exportation has nearly equaled that of 1880.

TRANSPORTATION.

One of the most important features in our export trade is transportation. facilities, and this for two reasons: 1st, the great bulk of the products to be moved as compared with their values; and, 2nd, the enormous distance traversed. Improvements in means of carriage have made this trade possible, and it will be maintained and enlarged as this last item in the cost of the marketed products shall be still further reduced. The great canals, notably the Erie canal, the shipping of the lakes, the vast railway system, the great trans-atlantic fleets, are the arteries of traffic. For their development, management, and improvement, the quickest minds of the age are constantly working. Progress has been in two directions, the cost and the time required to reach a market, both of prime importance in establishing and maintaining trade. Some interesting facts in this connection may be cited from a recent report issued by the Bureau of Statistics at Washington: "These improvements in transportation have been made chiefly during the last fifteen years. During that period the foreign commerce of the country has much more than doubled. This is shown as follows: The total value of the exports of merchandise from the United States increased from $281,952,899 during the year ended June 30, 1868, to $823,805,819 during the year ended June 30, 1883, and the value of the imports of merchandise into the United States increased during the same period from $357,436,440 to $723,122,666.

* * *

"Only about eighteen years ago it was regarded as problematical by the managers of the principal east and west trunk lines whether grain could be profitably hauled from Chicago to New York by rail in competition with the Jake, Erie canal, and Hudson river route. But during the year 1882, about 80.2 per cent. of the total receipts of grain at Atlantic seaports of the United States was by rail, and only 19.8 per cent. by lake, canal, and Hudson river. Even as late as the year 1869 the rail rates from Chicago to New York ranged from 30 to 42 cents per bushel, but during nearly nine months of the year 1882 the established rate was only 25 cents per 100 pounds, or 15 cents per bushel, and this rate appears to have been regarded as fairly remunerative. The average rate for the year was only 14.6 cents per bushel.

"During the last five years, 34.83 per cent. of the shipments of wheat, 87.18 per cent of the shipments of flour, and 30.14 per cent. of the shipments of corn from Chicago towards the east were by rail." It is true that at no time has the all-rail rate to New York been as low as the lake-and-canal or the lake-and-rail rate, but in many cases the superior swiftness of the all-rail

transportation has made it an advantageous method to employ. For Philadelphia and Baltimore this was of course the natural method of shipment.

Mr. Nimmo, the chief of the Bureau of Statistics, publishes a table showing the average yearly rates per bushel on wheat shipments from Chicago to New York, by the three methods of transportation mentioned above, during a period of fifteen years, beginning with 1868. By lake and canal in that year the freight charged per bushel was 25.3 cents; by lake and rail 29 cents; by all rail 42.6 cents. In 1882 they had reached, through successive reductions, by lake and canal 8.7, by lake and rail 10.9, by all rail 14.6 cents. Speaking roughly, there was in that time, in all three, a cutting down of charges by 66 per cent. from the rate of 1868. This is certainly a remarkable example of the stimulating effects of free competition. The cheapening of freights has been greater than was thought of in the early grange agitation. Mr. Nimmo thinks "it is not probable that during this entire period [of 15 years] the carrier has been able to realize much more than a narrow margin of profit." It should be remembered that during this time a large part of that consolidation of trunk lines that is so much talked of has been accomplished, and this has greatly lessened the expense of managing the railways, and so made possible reductions in freight rates. What counterbalancing evils may be involved in this concentration of railway interests, it is aside from the present purpose to enquire. There has also come about a vast improvement in the general equipment of railways within the period alluded to, and this, together with the enormous increase in the volume of traffic, has contributed to the reduction of rates.

Mr. Nimmo states that "from 92 to 95 per cent. of the grain received at the ports of Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore during the year 1882 was the product of the Western and Northwestern States;" which shows very clearly the main source of supply for the larger part of our exports and the importance of cheap freights.

One fact is very significant as showing the preference of shippers in general for railway transportation. From a recent publication of the Bureau of Statistics it appears that while the tonnage of the New York State canals fell from 6 million tons in 1868 to 5 millions in 1882, the tonnage of the New York Central railroad system rose from 1,800,000 tons to 11,000,000. Of a total movement of wheat to the seaboard in the latter year amounting to 186,000,000 bushels, 114 millions went by the Mississippi route, 344 by lake and canal, and 140 by rail.

The ocean rates on grain from New York to Liverpool show no such remarkable reductions as those just cited. In 1866 wheat was carried for 9 cents per bushel; during the past year (1883) for about 9 cents; though between those years down to 1881 the rate ruled above 10 cents, and in a single year (1873) rose to over 21 cents. "The reductions in the cost of transportation upon the ocean," to uote again from Mr. Nimmo,*" have been mainly the result of the increased size of steam vessels, the economies effected in the use of coal, and the reductions which have been effected in the proportional amount of space occupied by coal, boilers, and engines, whereby the space available for passengers and freight has been correspondingly increased."

Within the period already referred to there were similar reductions in the freight charges on the Mississippi boats.

* Preliminary report on the Foreign Commerce of the U. S., Aug. 6, 1883, p. 15.