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UNITED STATES
1970
UNITED STATES

869; nonmetallic ones $1,242,701,402; metallic ones $760,743,467; and other products $300,000. Much of the vast mineral wealth, especially in the south, remains undeveloped.

Forests. A greater variety of trees is found in the United States than in Europe, though nearly all European trees are found here, and originally forests covered a third of the country. But many sections in the Appalachians and around the Great Lakes have been stripped almost bare. Ash, beech, birch, chestnut, maple, oak, pine and walnut abound in the east; hemlock, spruce and white pine in the north; Douglas fir, redwood, sequoia and yellow cedar on the Pacific slope; and cypress and yellow pine in the south. (See articles under titles above.) The prairies originally were treeless as a whole, except along streams, but forests have been planted to a considerable extent. Nearly 1,100,000 square miles of the United States are woodland, nearly a third being on the Rockies and along the Pacific. Probably the heaviest stand of timber on earth is found in California, Oregon and Washington. See America (Animals and Vegetables); Europe (Natural History); Forest-Reserves; Lumbering; and National Parks.

Fish and Game. The varieties of fish in United States waters number 816, of mollusks 1,000; while the mammals number 310 varieties, the birds 756. The most important fish, commercially, are the blue-fish, cod, halibut, herring, mackerel, menhaden, sardines and shad of the Atlantic; the redfish and tarpon of the Gulf; the salmon of the Pacific; and the bass, perch, pickerel, pike, muskellunge, salmon, trout and whitefish of the inland waters. The chief gamebirds and waterfowl used as food are ducks, grouse, pigeons, quail, turkey and wild geese. The most important game-animals are antelope, bear, deer, mountain-sheep (nearly extinct) and moose. The chief edible mollusks are clams, lobsters, oysters and scallops. The terrapin is another marine delicacy. (See articles under titles above and Fish-Culture, Fishes and Furs.)

Industries

The chief classes of industries in the order of importance are manufacturing, agriculture (including stock-raising), mining, forestry (or lumbering) and fishing. In each of these industries the United States leads the world. The value of the products of manufactures in 1909 was $20,672,052,000; of those of agriculture, in 1910, $8,926,000,000 (over one-half being products of farm animals), of those of mining $2,003,744,869 in 1910, of those of lumbering $724,705,760 in 1909, and of those of fishing $67,898,859, while the output of the fish-canneries was worth $27,648,289. Thus the four main groups of industries annually average an output worth over $32,000,000,000.

Manufactures. During the last 40 or 45 years manufactures have expanded more rapidly than has any other class of industries. The east has become an almost exclusively manufacturing section, but the interior and the south have made enormous strides as manufacturers. Abundant natural resources from farm, forest, mine and waters; cheapness and plentifulness of fuel; fine water-power, with steam and electricity; inventive genius in the people; intelligence, industry and thrift; exceptional facilities for transportation; millions of immigrants; unhindered commerce between the states; and unequaled advantages for labor as well as for capital from the laws of the land, the national and state constitutions and the democratic nature of American society—have all combined to make the United States the source of a third of the world's manufactures. The sole disadvantage has been the high price of labor. This has been offset by its efficiency and the low cost of food and clothing. The 1910 census of manufactures, which was confined to factories and excluded local industries and hand trades, grouped them as follows, according to the character of the finished products: Food and kindred products; textiles; iron and steel and their products; leather and its products; chemicals and allied products; clay, glass and stone products; vehicles for land transportation, and miscellaneous industries. Among these food and kindred products led with a value of over $3,035,000,000. Iron, steel and their products, including foundry and machine shop products, steel works, rolling mills and blast furnaces, were worth over $2,605,000,000; textiles, $1,684,636,000; flour and grist mill products, $883,584,000. The establishments numbered 268,491, representing an investment of $18,428,270,000, having a force of employes (salaried and wage-earning) of 7,405,313, and paying them $4,365,613,000. The food industries include the making of butter, cheese and condensed milk, canning and preserving, flour-making and grist-milling, rice-cleaning, slaughtering and meat-packing and sugar-refining. The textiles manufactured are carpets and rugs, cordage and twine, cotton and felt goods, hosiery and knit goods, oilcloth and linoleum, shoddy, silks, woolens, worsteds, etc. Iron and steel manufactures produce bars, castings, blooms, forgings, ingots, plate, rails, slabs and structural shapes. The manufacture of automobiles is now an important industry, the number turned out in 1909 being 127,287, valued at $249,202,075. The chemical and allied industries included acids, cottonseed product, dye-stuffs, extracts, explosives, fertilizers, gas, paints and petroleum-refining. Electricity, gas, steam, water and even wind-