Meantime, the development of the interior of the country was encouraged by other proc esses. The system, by which citizens or aliens who had declared their in tention of becoming citizens might obtain 160 acres of land for a home on payment of $1.25 per acre and an actual residence upon and cultivation of a part of the land,.drew millions of families to the interior where these public lands were available and other millions came from Europe to take advantage of this unique opportunity of obtaining homes at a nominal cost. Immigration chiefly from Europe in creased from 250,000 in the closing year of the Civil War to 387,000 in 1870, 457,000 in 1880 and 789,000 in 1882, averaging about 500,000 a year down to 1900 and then increasing to over a million a year as the development of the min ing and manufacturing industries added to the attractiveness of the opportunities offered.
The great prairies west ,of the Mississippi which had served in the earlier period as public ranges for large herds of cattle and sheep were gradually divided into farms as the population increased, and the productive power of the in terior of the country was thus gradually en larged. The number of farms in the country grew from 2,000,000 in 1860 to 2,660,000 in 1870, 4,000,000 in 1880, 4,565,000 in 1890, 5,737,000 in 1900 and 6,362,000 in 1910, the latest census year, and the number of persons engaged in agriculture grew from a little less than 6,000, 000 in 1870 to 12,659,000 in 1910.
Meantime, the mineral industries developed rapidly. The value of th. products of the mines was in 1870 but little more than $200, 000,000, advancing to $400,000,000 in 1881, $606,000,000 in 1890, over $1,000,000,000 in 1900, crossing the $2,000,000,000 line in 1912, and exceeding $3,500,000,000 in 1918.
The development of the manufacturing in dustries was coincidental with that of agricul ture and mining, for the factories, of course, required the products of both the farms and the mines. Not only was there plenty of raw material and coal for manufacturing purposes but the fact that manufactures formed two thirds of the merchandise being imported sug gested the importance of producing them at home, especially in view of the abundance of raw material suitable for this purpose. The value of domestic manufactures reported by the census in 1860 was $1,886,000,000, in 1870 $4,232,000,000, in 1880 $5,370,000,000, in 1890 $9,372,000,000, in 1900 $11,406,000,000, in 1910 U0,672,000,000, and in 1915 $24,246,000,000, while those best acquainted with the manu facturing conditions of 1919 estimate that the census of 1920 will show a grand total of $50, 000,000,000 worth of manufactures produced in the calendar year 1919, or 12 times as much as that of a half century earlier. The capital
invested in manufactures, according to the census reports, grew from $1,000,000,000 in 1860 to $1,700,000,000 in 1870, $2,800,000,000 in 1880, $6,500,000,000 in 1890, $9,800,000,000 in 1900, $18,500,000,000 in 1910 and $23,000,000,000 in 1915. It will be observed that the growth of capital invested in manufactures was much - _ more rapid than the growth in value of manu factures turned out, this rapid increase in ap plication of capital to manufacturing being due to the growing use of machinery in the various industries and permitting the manufacturers of the country to turn out a much greater volume of products than they would otherwise have been able to produce in view of the limitation of their labor supply. The capital of the manufacturing industries, as shown by the cen sus of 1915, was 22 times as much as in 1860, while the labor employed in 1915 was only nine times as much as in 1860, and the value of the manufactures turned out about 15 times as much as in 1860.
These developments of the three great in dustries, agriculture, mining and manufactur ing, have created a great commerce both in ternal and foreign. The total foreign com merce of the country which was but $317, 000,000 in 1850, $687,000,000 in 1860 and $850, 000,000 in 1870, crossed the $1,000,000,000 line in 1872, and was $1,500,000,000 in 1880, $1,650, 000,000 in 1890, crossing the $2,000,000,000 line in 1900, in which year it stood at $2,244,000, 000, then $3,315,000,000 in 1907, advancing to $4,258,000,000 in 1914, and with the increased demands ,of the war reached $6,531,000.000 in 1916 and $8,865,000,000 in 1918, while the fiscal year 1919 made a still higher record,$10, 320,961,000, all of these figures being for fiscal years. The imports grew from $436,000,000 in 1870 to 7:50,000,000 in 1900, $1,894,000,000 in 1914, all of which preceded the war, $2,946, 000,000 in 1918 and $3,095,877,000 in 1919. The exports grew from $393,000,000 in 1870 to $1,394,000,000 in 1900, $2,365,000,000 in 1914, the year preceding the war, jumped to $4,333,000, 000 in 1916, $6,290,000,000 in 1917 and $7,225,084,000 in 1919. In the normal period from 1870 to 1914, imports quadrupled and exports sextupled, while during the war period, 1914 to 1919, imports increased about 75 per cent and exports increased about 300 per cent. This very large increase in exports during the war period occurred chiefly in manu factures which grew from a little more than $1,000,000,000 in the fiscal year 1914 to $3,337, 576,000 in 1919, thus illustrating the great possibilities of the manufacturing industries of the United States in their power to supply world markets.