COOPERAGE MATERIALS.

The production of cooperage materials is a specialty of states whose timber is particularly adapted to this purpose. Thus, as shown by the following table, only thirty-two states were reported by the Twelfth Census as producing goods of this class. In staves the leading state was Michigan, followed by Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Arkansas, in the order given. Michigan's large product was largely due to its enormous salt production, which requires only an inferior quality of staves. The hardwood states were all heavy producers of this class of stock.

SAWED PRODUCTS-COOPERAGE MATERIALS, BY STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1900.

No report was given for the following states: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indian Territory. Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.

TIMBER CAMP PRODUCTS.

The following three-part table, found on the three following pages, gives quantity and value for all the leading products of the timber

camps, except sawlogs. Cooperage stock includes rived staves, stave and heading bolts, etc. The first column of figures below is the total value of the product, including items not tabulated but which are mentioned in the footnote on this page:

TIMBER CAMP PRODUCTS-BY STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1900.

8,715,661 $606,115 39,759 $347,743

Total-United States.... $15,186,013 82,546 $346,816

Included in Total value" are the following items not specifically mentioned here: Basket stock, excelsior stock, hop poles, handle stock, paving stock, masts and spars, ship knees, wheel stock, charcoal, all other products and amount received for contract work.

No report given for Nevada, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

In the portion of the table on the next page regarding timber camp products, the railway ties, number and value, are hewn ties only, and do not include the much greater number which are sawed and included in the

sawed lumber product and are not reported separately to the census office by the manufacturers.

Telegraph poles are usually of cedar, and, therefore, states, like Michigan and Wisconsin, in which cedar is plentiful are the leading producers in this line. Rived and shaved shingles have so nearly been displaced by sawed shingles that in 1899 but 41,433,000 were manufactured, against 12,102,017,000 sawed. Pennsylvania is preeminent in the production of tanning barks, especially hemlock, which has made it the seat of the greatest tanning industry.

TIMBER CAMP PRODUCTS-BY STATES AND TERRITORIES, 1900-Continued.

CHAPTER XXXI.

UNITED STATES-FOREIGN TRADE.

The magnificent forests of the United States have played an important part in its march toward the goal which has placed it in the van of the great powers as an exporting nation.

It does not detract from the patriotism which inspired our forefathers in their rebellion against the mother country to note that it was not merely the injustice which they suffered that induced them to go to war, but also the belief that the colonies would never enjoy any just measure of prosperity so long as their exports and imports were regulated by a foreign power. That legislation which inspired rebellion dealt directly with the country's trade with other lands.

That the necessity for independence actually existed was demonstrated by a tremendous increase in her exports soon after the new republic had been formed. The balance of the trade had been overwhelmingly against her, but with favorable legislation at home and recognition abroad it eventually shifted, and the region that had been a buying community became also a selling one. It is one of the simplest laws of commercial life that profit is dependent upon a condition in which receipts exceed expenditures. This constitutes the whole question of prosperity, whether of the individual or of the nation.

EXPORTS IN EARLY DAYS.

In the shifting of the current of trade and the increase of American exports, wood products played a conspicuous part. The peace with England in 1783 found the United States comprising a strip of territory on the Atlantic Ocean extending from Maine-then a district of Massachusetts-to Georgia, and bounded on the west by the Mississippi River. The total area in 1790 was 239,935 square miles, with a population of 3,929,214. Yet in this comparatively limited area the lumber product gave large and profitable returns from its exportation.

British reports show that in 1731 the imports from the colonies of Virginia and Maryland already included a total of $15,000 worth of timber. The lumber exports from the colonies in 1770, still some years previous to the outbreak of the American Revolution, were valued at