55,285,196 oz., but owing to the high price the production was
worth $61,966,412. Montana and Utah seemed to be forging
ahead as the great silver-producing states, Nevada remaining
stationary.
Fisheries.—According to an estimate made by the Bureau of Fisheries the annual fishery product during the decade 1910-9 amounted to 2,500,000,000 lb., for which about $80,000,000 was paid to the fishermen. The industry employs about 200,000 persons. The total quantity of fish landed at Boston and Gloucester, Mass., and Portland, Me., the three principal fishing ports in New England, amounted in 1919 to 196,481,000 lb. having a value to the fishermen of $7,548,000. Cod represented $2,332,000 and haddock $2,788,000. The product of the fisheries of the Great Lakes in 1917 was 104,269,000 lb., valued at $6,295,000. One-half of the product, 53,529,000 lb., was ciscoes (whitefish). The product of the fisheries of the Gulf states in 1918 was 130,924,000 lb., valued at $6,510,000. The principal products were: mullet, 28,641,000 lb.; shrimp, 27,143,000 lb.; and oysters, 23,754,000 lb. At Seattle, Wash., the fishing fleet landed in 1919 13,651,000 lb., valued at $1,530,000. The principal product was halibut. The total catch of salmon and steelhead trout on the Pacific coast in 1919 including Alaska was 767,000,000 pounds. It is estimated that the annual yield of oysters for the whole United States is about 30,000,000 bus. giving a return to the fishermen of nearly $15,000,000. About one-sixth, 5,942,000 bus., come from the New England coast, and over one-half, 18,906,000 bus., from the coast of the Middle Atlantic states.
Production.—Professor Edmund E. Day of Harvard has made an ingenious statistical study of the physical volume of production in the United States for the period 1888-1919, published in The Review of Economic Statistics (Harvard University, Sept. 1920-Jan. 1921). His conclusions are shown in Table 16. With 1899 as the base (100) index numbers for subsequent years were calculated for agriculture, representing 12 important crops; for mining, representing 10 minerals; and for manufacturing, representing 12 groups, covering 34 branches of manufacture. The indices for pop. are added in order to compare the growth of production.
Table 16. Index Numbers of Production.
| Population | Agriculture | Mining | Manufacture | |
| 1899 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
| 1900 | 101.8 | 100.6 | 105.7 | 101.0 |
| 1901 | 103.8 | 89.3 | 114.6 | 112.4 |
| 1902 | 106.0 | 113.7 | 122.7 | 123.5 |
| 1903 | 108.1 | 105.0 | 135.0 | 125.5 |
| 1904 | 110.3 | 116.0 | 136.3 | 123.2 |
| 1905 | 112.4 | 117.5 | 161.6 | 144.4 |
| 1906 | 114.5 | 125.0 | 169.9 | 155.0 |
| 1907 | 116.7 | 112.4 | 185.9 | 156.3 |
| 1908 | 118.9 | 118.8 | 154.2 | 132.7 |
| 1909 | 121.0 | 118.1 | 189.4 | 163.4 |
| 1910 | 123.1 | 123.2 | 201.6 | 166.0 |
| 1911 | 125.3 | 117.0 | 194.4 | 158.3 |
| 1912 | 127.4 | 138.1 | 216.7 | 181.4 |
| 1913 | 129.6 | 122.1 | 227.2 | 187.1 |
| 1914 | 131.6 | 135.0 | 202.6 | 171.4 |
| 1915 | 133.2 | 141.0 | 227.6 | 187.2 |
| 1916 | 134.8 | 124.9 | 267.0 | 218.6 |
| 1917 | 136.5 | 135.0 | 277.2 | 215.2 |
| 1918 | 138.1 | 133.2 | 279.6 | 214.0 |
| 1919 | 139.7 | 137.6 | 228.4 | 195.3 |
Table 16 shows that the physical volume of agricultural production has closely followed the growth of population. As Prof. Day points out, “Mining output, on the other hand, completely out-distanced population growth. Since 1897 the development of mining has been phenomenal. . . . Crops are an annual harvest from a soil the fertility of which scientific cultivation carefully preserves; mineral production is a continuing exhaustion of irreplaceable natural deposit. Mining typically lives upon its capital; agriculture upon its income. The rate of production in mining is consequently open to an acceleration which in agriculture is altogether impossible. . . .The fluctuations of manufacturing output appear to be much more cyclical than the variations in agricultural production. In general the fluctuations of production in manufacture resemble closely those in mining.”
Commerce, Foreign and Domestic.—Extraordinary movements in foreign commerce, due to the World War, began with 1915. During the years 1900-9, inclusive, the excess of exports over imports of merchandise varied in value from a maximum of $666,000,000 in 1908 to a minimum of $351,000,000 in 1909. Beginning with 1915 the annual excess was over a thousand million dollars, reaching in 1919, $4,016,000,000. Table 17 shows the movement by years, and the excess of exports over imports in each year. The excess of exports over imports in trade with European countries was even greater than the balance from total trade with all countries, amounting in 1919 to $4,437,000,000. Trade with South America uniformly showed an excess of imports over exports, ranging from $66,000,000 in 1911 to $308,000,000 in 1918; and trade with Asia also gave adverse balances ranging from $121,000,000 in 1911 to $408,000,000 in 1918. The figures given here relate to values of exports and imports, and do not, even approximately, reflect the changes in the physical volume of foreign commerce. For some of the commodities recorded in official statistics of exports and imports it is possible to give quantities as well as values; for others only values. In order to illustrate the influence of prices on abnormal values of commodities entering into foreign trade, quantities are given in Table 18 of exports for five commodities: wheat, cotton, bacon, mineral oil and tobacco; for other principal commodities only values are stated.
Table 17. Foreign Trade; in millions of dollars.
| Exports | Imports | Excess | |
| 1910 | 1,745 | 1,557 | 188 |
| 1911 | 2,049 | 1,527 | 522 |
| 1912 | 2,204 | 1,653 | 551 |
| 1913 | 2,466 | 1,813 | 653 |
| 1914 | 2,365 | 1,894 | 471 |
| 1915 | 2,769 | 1,674 | 1,094 |
| 1916 | 4,333 | 2,198 | 2,136 |
| 1917 | 6,290 | 2,659 | 3,631 |
| 1918 | 5,920 | 2,946 | 2,974 |
| 1919 | 7,920 | 3,904 | 4,016 |
| 1920 | 8,228 | 5,278 | 2,950 |
It will be observed from Table 18 that the quantity of wheat increased six times, while the value increased nearly fifteen times, and the quantity of cotton was less in 1919 than in 1910, but its value more than doubled. High prices also influenced imports, as seen in Table 19. The quantity of coffee imported increased a little over 50%, while the value more than trebled; and the quantity of sugar 67%, but its value 245%.
The enormous excess of exports of merchandise over imports, which began to be so marked in 1915, resulted in unprecedented gold transfers to the United States. In 1916 the import of gold exceeded the export by $403,760,000, and in 1919 by $685,255,000. Thus in two years the gold holdings were increased by $1,089,000,000. In the years 1918-9 $366,000,000 of this gold was exported, leaving a net additional balance of $723,000,000. This was in large part reflected in the increase of gold money in circulation, which rose from $590,000,000 in 1915 to $1,112,000,000 in 1919.
Railways and Canals.—There was but little new railway construction in the years 1910-21. In the five years 1915-9 less than 5,000 m. of new railway was built, not as much as was constructed in one year in the period 1902-7. In 1919 the miles of track in operation were 253,350 as compared with 242,107 in 1910, a gain of less than 5 per cent. The railways, however, did more work. Passenger-miles increased from 32,338 millions in 1910 to 39,477 millions in 1917, or 22%, and freight-ton-miles from 255,017 millions in 1910 to 394,465 millions in 1917, or 54 per cent. The average tons per freight train increased from 380 to 597. In 1917 1,264 million tons of freight (excluding duplications) were moved by the railways as against 968 millions in 1910. More than one-half of the tonnage carried was the products of mines, coal being by far the largest item. The average number of passengers carried per train rose from 56 to 65. The number of railway employees increased but slightly, from 1,699,420 in 1910 to 1,833,732 in 1917. Electric railways, mostly used for passenger service, have been extended more rapidly than steam railways. In 1907 there were 25,547 m. of electric line and in 1917, 32,548. The number of employees rose from 221,429 to 294,826 and the number of revenue passengers from 7,441 millions to 11,305 millions. (See Railways.)
In 1916 the Bureau of Census made a study of transportation by water. According to this report the tonnage employed on the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence river in 1916 was 2,737,491 tons as compared with 2,392,863 tons in 1906, a gain of 14.4 per cent. The freight carried was 125,384,000 tons as against 75,610,000 tons in 1906, a gain of 65.8 per cent. Of this, 73,000,000 tons was iron ore, 30,000,000 tons coal, and 6,000,000 tons grain. The freight handled by the Lakes fleet represented nearly one-half, 48.6%, of the water-borne freight shipments reported for the United States as a whole in 1916 as against 42.6% in 1906. Tonnage on the Mississippi river and tributaries declined greatly, from 4,412,000 tons in 1906 to 1,621,000 tons in 1916. Vessels operating on canals declined both in number and in tonnage. In 1906 the number of such vessels was 2,140 with a tonnage of 259,491; in 1916 the number was 2,049 with a tonnage of 196,426. The decline was on the canals of New York state, where the tonnage dropped from 209,152 tons in 1906 to 115,290 in 1916, showing that the efforts to develop canal transportation in that state had not been successful. The freight carried on the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, connecting lakes Superior and Huron, fluctuated during the decade 1910-9, between 53,477,000 tons in 1911 and 91,888,000 tons in 1915; in 1919 it was 68,236,000 tons.
Mails, Telephone and Telegraph.—Postal statistics show a slight extension of post routes, exclusive of rural delivery routes, from 435,488 m. in 1910 to 455,498 m. in 1919; the number of city carriers from 29,168 to 35,024; the mileage of rural delivery service from 993,068 to 1,143,467; and the number employed in railway mail service from 16,795 to 19,683. The telephone was rapidly
