United States. The yield in 1910 was over 381,000,000 pounds, an average of 810 per acre. The yield of corn was 105,270,000 bushels and that of wheat about 10,000,000 bushels. The state produces six times as much hemp as the remainder of the union. The orchard products are apples, peaches, apricots, cherries, pears and plums. Grapes are grown abundantly in almost all quarters. Stockraising is carried on extensively and is very profitable. Horse-breeding is one of its most important and profitable industries, and brings vast sums of money. Kentucky thoroughbreds are famous throughout the world. Thousands of mules are raised and shipped annually, to the cotton states. Large herds of the finest strains of cattle (notably the Durham and Herefords) are to be seen in many counties. Sheepraising is becoming very profitable, and the proportions of this industry are increasing yearly.
Manufactures. Kentucky has excellent natural facilities for manufacturing; her immense hardwood forests, her vast coalfields and her extensive natural waterways afford opportunities for profitable investment in almost all kinds of manufactured products. The increase for the last ten years, in all these lines, has been marvelous. The chief manufacturing cities are Paducah, Henderson, Owensboro, Louisville, Newport and Covington, all on the Ohio River. Louisville, at the falls of the Ohio, is rapidly becoming one of the most important manufacturing cities in the Union. Here are some of the largest plants in the world for the production of plug-tobacco, snuff, cigars, wagons, buggies, carriages, furniture and all kinds of farming implements. Manufacture of famous Kentucky whiskey is a large industry. The internal revenue from this source is over $20,000,000 annually.
Commerce. The commerce has increased nearly a hundredfold in the past decade. Besides horses, mules, cattle, sheep and swine, the leading articles of commerce are tobacco, flour and gristmill products, lumber of all kinds, liquors, iron and steel goods, leather, clothing, cars, cottonseed oil and dressed meats.
Transportation. The nearly 2,000 miles of river navigation and the 4,000 miles of railroads and electric car lines through the center of the state furnish ample means and facilities for travel and transportation of all kinds of freight. In addition to its railroads and electric lines the state has many thousands of miles of macadamized and gravel roads, all of which furnish easy, safe and rapid transportation for its various products.
Education. Kentucky has provided and is supporting a uniform system of public schools which are required to be taught six months in the year, and which all children between the ages of six and twenty years are entitled to attend. The state pays liberally for the support of these public schools, the per capita of 1911 being $4.40. There are about 9,000 elementary public schools. These are divided into eight grades, requiring from eight to ten years for their completion. The number of children reported in 1911 within the school age was 739,684. The same provision is made for the colored children as for the whites, but they must be taught in separate schools and by colored teachers. The state school fund in 1911 amounted to $3,500,000. This, in some of the counties and in nearly all the towns and cities, is supplemented by local taxation, so that their schools are taught from eight to ten months each year and their teachers receive higher salaries. The average salary of teachers in the rural districts is about $50 per month. Kentucky has two superior normal schools for the training of teachers, one located in Richmond, Madison County, in the east, and the other in Bowling Green, Warren County, in the west. The state also supports a university in Lexington, which is attended by nearly 1,000 students annually, and schools for the blind, deaf and dumb and the feeble-minded. A normal and industrial school for the negroes, located in Frankfort, is largely attended. Tuition is free, and the teachers, 17 in number, are paid by the state. Among the most noted of the colleges and universities are Kentucky University at Lexington, Georgetown College in Georgetown, Berea College at Berea, Bethel College in Russellville, Central University in Danville and Kentucky Wesleyan College in Winchester. Most of these are well-endowed, and do thorough and efficient work.
History. Kentucky originally was a part of Virginia, and was explored and settled principally by emigrants from Virginia and North Carolina. For many years it was the hunting-ground of the Indians north of the Ohio River and south of Tennessee. It took years of strife and bloodshed to win it from the Indians. It was admitted into the Union in 1792 — the fifteenth state. Kentuckians have acted a conspicuous part in national and state affairs, and in the War of 1812, the war with Mexico, the Civil War and the Spanish War her sons stood abreast of the soldiers and patriots of any other state. The population is 2,289,905, fifteen per cent. being negroes.
Ke′okuk (kē′ō-kuk), Ia., is situated almost at the southeast extremity of the state on the Mississippi River (here crossed by a railroad bridge), 161 miles by rail southeast of Des Moines. Keokuk has six lines of railroad. The largest steamboats can always come up to Keokuk, and Des Moines Rapids, immediately above, are passed by a canal 7.6 miles long, which cost about $6,000,000. The town contains medical, dental, pharmaceu-
