Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1911-12-20
IMPORTS AND EXPORTS
Statistics of Interest to Americans
Who Study Economic
Conditions.
HUNDRED MILLION SOLD YEARLY
Exports of Products Used i'm Guilt
8 waiting Soil Double That
of Imports.

The agricultural interests of for
eign coutries buy nearly $100,000,-
600 worth of American manufac-
lures and other products for use in
cultivating the soil, while about
$50,000,000 worth of foreign pro-
ducts are annually imported into
the United States for use upon
American farms. The foregoing sum-
marizes certain information recently
compiled by the Bureau of Statistics,
Department of Commerce and Labor,
in response to an inquiry upon that
subject received from q representa-
tive newspaper located in the great
farming area of the middle west,
and refers more especially to those
classes of merchandise having their
chief, if not exclusive use in the
farming industry and does not in
clude articles in general use, such as
clothing, furniture, and miscellan-
eouS manufactures.
OF the exports from the United
States of articles required in farm
ing, by far the larger portion are
composed of manufactures, such as
agricultural implements, binding
twine, barbed wire, and oil cake i;
while phosphate rock, to be ground
up and used as fertilizer, and clover,
timothy and other grass seeds are
among the articles exported in the
natural state. In addition to the eX-
ports above enumerated as specific
ally for farm use, there are certain
articles for which the agricultural
lists of other countries draw upon the
United States, but which cannot be
classed as distinctively for farm pur-
poses, such as wagons, carriages,
traction engines, fiber bags, pumps,
exc. in sucn cases the Bureau OF Sta
tistics has no means of determining
the proportion of the exports intend
ed for farm use and they are not,
therefore, included in the 100 mil
lion dollars worth of merchandise
exported for agricultural purposes.
Taking up the principal exports
OF the class under discussion, agrf-
cultural implements head the list,
with probable total of $4,000, 900
in the year about to end, comprised
of nearly $2O,00O,00O worth of now
ers AMI reapers, 100000 worth
of plows and cultivators, $4,000, 900
worth of threshers and the remand
er miscellaneous farming tools and
implements. These agricultural i'm
plements are exported to practically
all parts of the world where man has
adopted modern methods of cultiya-
ton; in the great wheat fields of
Russia, in the vineyards of France,
on the coffee plantations of Brazil,
in the rice fields of China and Japan
and in all the rapidly developing
countries of the new world, includ-
ing Canada, Argentina, Cuba, and
Mexico. The years exports will
range from nearly $S,000,000 to
European Russia, $6,O00,000 to
Argentina, and about 100000 to
Canada, to about $1,5OO,0O0 to At
rica, while to British Australia and
Oceania will be sent total of nearly
$2,000,000, TO other Oceania and
Asia about s1.OOO,0OO. and Brazil
about 100000 worth. Even the
great manufacturing countries of
Europe. the United Kingdom of Ger
many and France, are represented in
the years exports of agricultural
implements, the United Kingdom
with total of over sI,0O0,0O0,
Germany, 100000 and France,
100000
Fertilizers of which the exports
will be about S12, 100000 during
the year. are chiefly sent to Euro
pean countries, where long contin-
ued use of the soils has largely de-
pleted their natural fertility and
rendered artificial fertilizers a neces-
sity. For American phosphate rock
and other fertilizers of that class
Germany is the largest market, fol-
lowed next by the Netherlands and
the United Kingdom. Another class
of materials, used as cattle food,
whose exports are considerable, in
cludes oil cake and oil cake meal,
made from cotton seed and linseed.
OF these the exports amount to about
SIS, 100000 per annWm, being ex-
ported mostly to various countries
of Europe.
Binding twine is another article
OF Importance in wheat growing
countries. OF that article the years
exports will be about $S,000,000,
practically all destined for Russia