Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1910-02-11
of Farm 2 OduCts In
to the United States

The farm products imported into the
I United States during the fiscal year 1907
the year of highest record amounted
in value to nearly $627, 90 O00 The i'm
ports for 1903 were valued at $540,000,-
600, in round numbers, and the average
for the five years 1901 1905 was trihe
over S455,O0O,O00. These and other in
teresting figures appear in bulletin re-
Gently issued by the U. S. Department of
| Agriculture which reviews our imports
of farm products during period reach
| ing back to the middle of the last CEN
tury.
The farm products imported may be
J divided into two general classes, %
those which compete with products of
| farms in this country. and (2) those
which do not so compete to any consid-
erable extent. The first class, embrac-
| ing such items as sugar, tobacco, hay
and hides and skins, makes up a little
| less than half Of the total. The princi-
pal items of the second class are silk,
coffee, tea, sisal grass, manila fiber, jute,
| bananas, cOcOanuts, and Peruvian and
| Egyptian cotton.
! Farm products have always cOnstitut-
ed large part OF our imports, but not
the prepOnderant share that such prod
ucts hold in our export trade. In the
| fifties only about one-third Of our i'm
| 20 put m
portance gradually increased, and in
1875 to the end of the century agricul-
tural products made up just about one
half Of the tot |, in some years rising
above and in some years falling below
the so per cent line. Since 1900, how
ever, while farm products have coGtln-
ued to increase, the gain in imports OF
manufactures and other n0nagricultuTal
articles has been even greater, so hat
only about 46 per cent Of the totai i'm
ports since 1900 are TO be classed as agri-
cultural.
| By comparing imports with exports it
| is found that for the FIVE years 1901 1903,
our average exports of cotton, grain, and
grain products exceeded 10y $74,00o,000
our total imports Of products OF the
| farm.
Imports of agricultural products have
increased much faster than population
during the period covered by this re-
view. In the period io5i-iS55 these I'M
p0rts AVERAGED in value 1921 per capita;
during the five year l901l905 the aver
age was $5.67. OF this increase Of 1896
per capita, 55 cents F0s due to increased
! imports of silk, So cents to packing
house products, 45 cents to vegetable
fibers, % cents to coffee, 20 cents 20 Wool.
| IS cents to tobacco II cents to all fruits,
H. cents to cocoa and chocolate, and Z
cents to vegetable oils.
Comparing the two periods 1S51-lS55
and 19Oi-1905, il is found that in fifty
years imports of coffee increased from 7
to IL pounds per capita, imports OF tea
from q to 1.2 pounds, and imports II
sugar from II to 46 pounds per capita.
while during the half century imports of
manufactured tobacco doubled and i'm
ports of wool trebled
Import prices show some marked
changes. Cheese rose from 9 cents
pound in 1851 to l9 cents pound in
! 1908, and potatoes from 32 to 20 cents
bushel during the same period. Manila
hemp, imported direct from the Philip
pines, was valued at $40 a ton in 1862,
when first recorded separately among
the imports; it has subsequently more
than doubled in price, being rated at
$171 per ton in 1908. Philippine sugar,
on the other hand, despite Improvements
! in grade. fell from 30 to Ii cents
pound during the fifty-eight year under
review, while Cuban sugar declined from
/ SO to 25 cents pound. Among the
spices, pepper advanced from 80 to 10
cents pound, while nutmegs fell to II
cents pound, less than fifth of the 63
cents recorded in 1851.
Raw silk imported from Italy is valued
higher than that from the Far East, and
| OF Tile IdUbtT blle SIN llUul Japan 10
higher than that from China. Brazilian
coffee shows an import price little more
! than half that Of cnffee from the Dutch
East Indies Java and Sumatra), but
GuatemaIan coffee comes almost as high
as the latter. Before 1861, however,
there was little difference in price be-
tween coffee from Brazil and from the
Dutch East Indies; in fact for four out
of ten years the price OF Brazilian coffee
was the higher. In the early nlnetles
Cuban wrapper tobacco> WAS frequently
valued below Sumatra wrapper; in the
five years ending 1893 the import price
of Cuban was 70 per cent higher. The
relative Impcr; prices of Cuban and
| Turkish filler tobacco vary considerably
from year to year. Thus in 1903 and
! 1904 Turkish was 12.5 per cent higher,
but in the next four years Cuban was in
voiced at a rate 80 per cent higher than
! Turkish.