Foreign countries did pot remain indifferent to the success of the United States in the em ployment of the principle of interchangeability of parts. Various commissions were appointed to investigate the system; and, as remarked above, the economic success of the United States in producing interchangeable parts led to the adoption of this method in Europe. In 1854 the Colt factory was established at Hartford, and shortly afterward a British commission bought from them a full outfit of machinery for making the Enfield rifle on the interchangeable system. Between 1870 and 1880 our large ma chinery manufacturers were kept busy filling foreign orders, especially for gun machinery, Large orders for such machinery were received from the German government; and it was even stipulated in the contract that the manufacturers should send over men to set up the machinery and instruct native workmen how to run it, Other governments began to look to us for their machinery; and thus our system for the manu facture of interchangeable parts was gradually established in England and continental Europe.' This principle of interchangeability, first ap.1 plied to the manufacture of fire-arms, then to pistols, has now been extended to practically every kind of machine. The sewing-machine, the typewriter, the bicycle, the watch, the vari ous kinds of agricultural machinery, the gasoline engine, and notably in the automobile, may be mentioned as types showing the eco nomic value of the principle of interchangeabil ity. All our large machinery manufacturers are represented in foreign countries, and certain types of American typewriters, sewing-machines,i cash registers, mowing-machines, reapers, etc., are just as well known there as they are here. American textile machinery and shoe-making machinery play an equally important part. . It is impossible to give statistics for our chinerv-manufacturing industry as a whole, since, with a few exceptions, the United States census does not separate it from foundry and machine-shops in general. The following fig ures from the Special Census of taken in 1914 afford the best available survey of the present condition of the machinery-manu facturing industry in the United States. Of the
17,027 establishments included as foundries and machine shops, 10,640 are grouped as making machinery of some sort. These shops operated in the year, quoted with a combined capital of $1,246,042,694, and with 564,610 wage earners, who received in that year $244,146,380 in wages. The value of the product amounted to $866,544, 677, of which $508,422,896 was the value added by manufacture. In the following table is given the number of establishments making the The manufacture of electrical machinery is also very large and of great aggregate value, no separate figures are available, the census grouping the machinery of this class with elec trical apparatus and supplies.
By far the largest group of all is the agricul tural machinery. In this case also the census fails to separate the machines from the tools— such as spades, rakes and ploughs. However it is certain that by far the greater values are in the drills; the mowing, reaping and binding machines and other harvesters. The figures as given for this industry in 1914 are as fol lows: 601 establishments reported a capital ag gregating $338,531,673; and the Value of their product for the year was $164,086,835, of which sum $90,578,190 was added by manufacture.
The exports of American machines and ma chinery in 1914 amounted in value to $91,818, 664, to which should be added most of the value of agricultural implements exported, $10,304,978, a decrease owing to the war from $31,965,789 in 1913.
Since the beginning of the European War the exports of other types of American ma chinery have enormously increased. This in crease has been most remarkable in the case of metal-working machinery. In 1913, the latest year in which the figures can be regarded as quite normal, the exports of such machinery were valued at $16,097,315. By 1916 they had risen to $61,315,032. Steam locomotives ex potted in 1913 were valued at $6,442,674; those exported in 1916 at $12,665,877. The export values , of electrical locomotives, automobile engines, marine engines and sugar-mill ma chinery also show an increase of 100 per cent' between the two years quoted.
See HARDWARE INDUSTRY; FARM HACUIN Ely ; and articles on special types of machinery.'