The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-01-05

I mines. While Colorado has yielded new wealth from it's mines of $S,00O.OO0, the
 mines of Utah have maintained an equa | increase, and that is true of New Mex ] ico, Idaho and Arizona.
 AGRICULTURE TO BE SUPREME Notwithstanding these phenomenal in | creases in the output of minerals from the mines of these six states, the day is not far distant when their agricultural output will surpass in money value the products of their mines each year. A few days ago, man who has undoubted familiarity with conditions in Utah spoke of the wonderful opportunities for agriculture which that state offers and which have been in part accepted. Montana s wheat yield is, so far as the number of bush els harvested to the acre is concerned, the high record for any American state. The mines will take care of themselves There is sure to be a continued and in crea sing demand for minerals produced from the mines of these six states, and
 especially for copper. They are to be
 among the worlds great copper-produc-
 ing communities. But, after all, these
 states will each year make increase in
 the amount of products they secure from
 the soil, and it is inconceivable that these
 agricultural opportunities will ever be
 neglected.
 THE GREATER WEALTH
 The Washington authorities have been
 putting out other information than that
 which tells of the increase in the output
 of the mines of the Rocky mountain
 states. This information points directly
 to the fact that it is upon agriculture
 that the country must in large measure
 depend for it's yearly increases in wealth.
 It is a safe estimate that the aggregate
 value of all the harvests in the United States in 1915 will be somewhat in excess of $11 ,000,000,000. We last year passed the $10 000.000,o00 figure, which was the arbi- trary standard for some years of the money value of our crops by something more than $1,000, 100000. These figures are the basis of some of the comments which are daily made by men of large affairs, s their prediction that the year 1916 will es- tablish the date when large investments of capital in the development of domestic resources of all kinds will begin not to be decreased, but rather increased if we handle the opportunity properly for con siderable term of years.
 In fact large investments of capital are already beginning to be made. This is especially true of some parts of the south, some sections in the southwest, anC also in the northwest For intance, there is no better proof of the disposition of capital to make investment in a large way in developing properties than is to be found in the announcement made a few days ago that capital has been secured or is to be secured, whereby the important steel manufacturing plant of Atlanta, Ga, will be so improved and enlarged as greatly to increase it's capacity. This in- crease, those who are well informed say will amount to about 100.000 tons a year Already it is one of the important indus tries of which Atlanta is the center. Another indicat ton of this restored cour- age and changed disposition of capital ir comparison with it's timidity of the past three or four years is to be found in the expected greatly increased development of the oil resources of Oklahoma and very likely of southern California.
 In the northwest. capital, though it be the capital of the United States Steel cor poration, has been expended in perfectine what is probably the finest of all the steel manufacturing plants erected in any part of the world Capital is going in large amounts into ship building, and the prophetic vision of c. P. Huntington is
 now a reality, so far as the great ship
 yard at Newport News is concerned, be-
 cause although already driven to it's ca
 pacity, it has undertaken to build four additional seagong vessels. It is notice-
 able. however, that the beginning of re-
 newed investment of capital in a large
 way is more noticeable in the south,
 southwest and northwest than in that sec
 tion of the country which is east of the
 Mississippi and north of the Ohio, with
 this eXception-the magnitude of capital
 invested in the automobile industry in
 the Detroit district is spoken of here as
 one of the most marvellous of the financial phenomena of the present time.