Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1903-08-07
ODDITIES OF EXPORTING.
What We Send Abroad and Some of the
Things We Get.

We send Dakota seed to Russia frem
which she raises wheat to compete Will
our own product in the markets OF the
world. To plant, cultivate, reap and
harvest her crops we send to Russia
nearly one-half our total exports OF
agricultural machinery. This year we
have already shipped some $4,000 tons
of these implements to the land of the
Gar. In former years all this passed
through the ports OF New York and
Philadelphia, but a fractional increase
in freight rates between the lakes and
the East has diverted the trade to
Southern ports, while experiments are
being made in direct shipment from
Chicago by way of the lakes, the st.
| Lawrence river and the Atlantic ocean.
The cotton plant first came to Amer
| lea from Asia; now the greater part OF
the central Asian crop is grown from
American cotton seed. American cul-
tivators till the soil, which is watered
by an American irrigation system.
Yankee gins clean the fibre. Ameri-
can compounds press the cotton. into
bales wrapped with American bands
and finally the cotton finds it's way to
Moscow over railroad built with
American capital, and is tunneled into
cloth by second hand machinery from
an American. cotton factory, to com
pete abroad with American prints.
Another regular article of export to
central Asia is the Ohio grapevine cut
ting. The vineyards of central Asia
are all off shoots from American vines,
and the fruit is priced above all others |
in Russia proper for its delicacy and |
flavor. Twenty to thirty tons of
American grapes to the acre is a COM |
mon yield in central Asia, and as the |
American vine is free from parasites,
it is being introduced everywhere the
world over, from South Africa to North
ern China and Japan. We still export |
tobacco plants to Russian Asia, so that |
the Russian tobacco. grape, cotton and
wheat crops are all American, once re-
moved.
No oriental fable is stronger than
the accomplishments of the up-to date
Yankee drummer. In Bagdad, the
the home of Aladdin, he offers new
American lamps that burn either Rus |
sian or Ohio oil. for the old battered
bronze tallow burners of the Bagdad
housewife, and as these time-worn
oriental lamps find a ready sale in New
York the enterprising drummer who
introduced the American lamp to Bag
dad was we'll repaid for his trouble.
Now, however, American lamps are
becoming drug in the Bagdad market,
and the supply of old lamps is rapidly
giving out as our lamp trade with Tur-
key increases.
A Connecticut firm manufactures
sacred scarabel for the Egyptian tourist
trade. The little charms are carved
and even chipped by machinery, col
Ored in bulk to simulate age and ship
ped in casks to the Moslem dealers at
Cairo. The Arabian guides are the
chief buyers, many of them being
adopts at ''salting" the sands at the
base of the pyramids, or about the sa-
cred temples, where they artfully dis
cover these scarabel before the very
eyes of the Yankee tourist and sell him
for an American dollar an article man-
ufactured at cost of less than cent
within stones throw of his
own home. For enterprise it beats
wooden utmegs.-Collier' Weekly.