New Britain herald., 1930-04-28
COTTON IS STILL
 KING IN AMERICA
But Machinery Threatens to
 Depose Old Export Leader

Washington, D. C., April 2S - Cotton, king of American exports for more than a century, kept its crown as United States exports crossed the S5,o00,O0O,000 mark during 1929 for the first time in a normal year.
 Cotton was tho first export col i Iccted by permanent European scr- tiers in the New World 43S years ago and continues to be the chic. export.
 But cotton's reign is threatened, | perhaps doomed, by machinery, says q bulletin from the Washington, D. C. headquarters of the National Geographic Society.
 Machinery Edging to Top
 "The billion dollar cotton export of 1925 has been cut by one-fourth, while the value of machinery ship ped abroad has doubled. If ma | chinery passes cotton in 193O then 1 Volume One of the story of Amer;- ca's foreign trade will close. Initel | States. for three centuries the rcsc.'. voir of raw materials, will becomG definitely United States. manufac- turcr to the world. Already the ! total value of manufactured goods plus semi-manufactured goods ls 1 three -fifths of the United States 1 export trade.
 There have only been two re9l i kings of. American exports; cotton and tobacco. Tobacco held first place for 150 years; cotton has ru,- cd the second century and a half 1 Only for two short periods, imme- diately after the Revolutionary wa and during the Civil war, did flour and wheat take the lead.
 First exports from North Amcri- ca were made, it is recorded, 145 years before tho landing of Colun- bus when Norscmen landed some | place near the mouth of the S.; Lawrence river and cut timber. Tho timber was consigned to GrccnlanI but winds drove the Viking ship off her course. Iceland in the year 1347 got the New Worlds first eX- port.
 Cotton and Parrots
 Christopher Columbus expected to gather gold ana spices from tho Indies, but the natives swimming and padding out to his ships pre- sented him with balls of cotton anl parrots.
 He came home without gold but promised Ferdinand and Isabella to get some on the next voyage to the Indies which, he declared woull prove valuable also as g source of drugs, cotton, mastic, aloes and rhubarb. Mastic is a resin. The island of Chios in the Aegean sea has maintained it's 2,000 year oil command of the mastic trade des- pitc Columbus prophecy. Pistacio nuts come from a tree of the same family.
 Then, Goldfish and S>assafras
 'Codfish drew the first English and French sailors to the Nortn American coast. The first Ian product exported to England was probably sassairas. Captain Martin Pring came to New England !1 years before the landing Of the Pill srims and loaded two ships with sassafras. England's great shipping companies bought sassafras to make 2 tea which was served to sailors .n the belief it kept them in good health.
 When Captain Newport Saile l back to England after leaving Cap tain John smith and his party 70 establish Jamestown in 1907 he car ricd one small gold nugget and q cargo of pyritc which he thought t9 be gold, but which turned out to be fools gold Sill he was not cure.l. Much to Captain John Smiths dis gust Captain Newport carried back on his next voyage q second carg3 of precious dirt
 Captain Smith Shipped Logs
 smith sent back q load of cedar logs so that the company woul5 have something to show for it's cX. pcndjtures and followed the logs with the first manufactured product exported from the United States clapboards. These were not clap. boards for cXtariors of frame house. as the United States knows them but panels for Nanscoting thy rooms of fine English houses 4 little later the Spanish ambassador 'wrote to his king that Britain vay receiving q fc Y trifles from Virgin ia; wood for Wauscot. soap ashy5 pitch, tarrc, and lindcs Of herbs foi dicnG'
 Virginia was asscrted 10 ba th oUaoI 'of Tyre for dyes, Rasan fo woods, Persia for oilT, Arabia fo, spices, Spain for silk. Narsis fo, : shipping, Bonoma for fruit and bN tillagc, Babylon for corn Yet .