Climate and Rainfall.—Delaware has natu rally a range of temperature between the severe cold of New England and the heat of the South, still further tempered by the sea breezes which alternate with the southwest winds in summer. The northwest winds of winter and spring are not more severe than of old, but the delicate crops, like peaches, have furnished a more costly thermometer, and the precariousness of the spring warmth is felt. On an average the spring begins about 1 April, and the autumn frosts toward the middle of October; the aver age temperatures run from about 85° in August to 25° in January. The rainfall is from 40 to 46 inches annually, the heaviest on the coast; and droughts are rarely ruinous. In the swampy districts and southern lowlands, there is still some malaria, though much less than formerly; but as a whole, the State has a very good sanitary record.
Soils and Agriculture.—The soil of the State steadily lightens southward from a rich loam underlaid with yellow clay, in the north, i and for some miles inland along the Delaware River, to a lighter loam with the clay, in Kent County, becoming in Sussex a very sandy loam without clay below. The north is the region of cereals and hay; the centre and south, of fruits, berries, grapes and vegetables; and the south especially of peaches and strawberries. The State is one immense market garden and orchard for the North, especially the great cities of New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware raise three-fourths of all the peaches, berries and blhersmall ftuitd sold in those markets. Dela ware in the •popular mind is identified with the peach crop, but there is a growing tendency to replace this now uncertain crop with cereals, market gardening and. especially apples. The other orchard fruits together exceed the peaches, the apple crop being very large. Experts pro noixnee the flavor of the Delaware apple very superior,. The year's crop of 1918, though shorter than in former years, was 350,000 :lbarrels.
Of the market gardening, the tomato is by far the principal -crop, and it is exceeded only hby that of Maryland. A surprising increase, .however, in which it is alone among the Eastern States, has • been in the wheat crop for the past two decades; its acreage in '1900 was 118,740, or nearly one-sixth of all the improved land, against 87;530 in 1880 and 125.000 acres in 1915. The first place in acreage, however, belongs to corn, with over 210,000 acres, and with a yield of 6,615,000 bush!s. Third is hay, 77,000 acres, yielding 110,000 tons, There is also 11,000 acres of potatoes, yielding 1,095,000 bushels, or ;100 bushels to the acre. The State raises 274 000 carriers of cantaloupes, 373 carloads of _watermelons and 20,000,000 quarts of straw berries annually. The dairy interest has in ,creased greatly in the decades; in 1910 there were 11' creameries against five in 1890 and 16 in 1916, counting shipping stations, the capital increasing from $19,0S5 to $300,000, and the value of the yearly products from $124,780 to ,$500,000. The largest creamery in the whole section is the Middletown Farms, which has a ;capital of $150,000, a yearly product of $450,000, drawing its milk from a country about 20 miles wide by 40 long. The annual value of the live stock of the State in round numbers is as fol lows: Horses, mules, much cows and other cattl$400e, $6,277,boo; sheep, $55,000; swine, ,000.
Outside of its one great manufacturing city, the agriculturg interest is supreme; no other State compares with Delaware in the propor tion of land under cultivation. Less than half
the farmers own their own farms, and near the same proportion work on shares, though trucking in the south is increasing the number of owners of small holdings. The thin soil of the sduthern part of the State reduces the aver age value of farms from $70 in the north to $45 there, per acre. Fertilizers are used in the 'whole State, but from three to four times as 'much is needed in Kent and Sussex.
Manufactures.— While Delaware as a State is predominantly agricultural, the enormous rel ative magnitude of its one great city, Warning ton, and the industries concentrated around it, makes the northern end a very important manu iactnring section. The great natural advantages 'of the spot were early utilized; the deep harbor for building the largest ships, the 126-foot fails of the Brandywine four miles from its mouth, and the proximity to the great coal • and iron Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. All branches Of' iron and steel manufacturing are 'carried on to an immense hxtent. The first iron sailing''vessel 'in the country was built in 1854 in Wilmington, which had previously 'been noted for building wooden ships; and that city has built 'iron and steel. steamers of greater number and aggregate tonnage than any other single port in the United States. Pumping and mining ;apparatus 'and paper-making ma chinery and car-wheels are famous specialties; in 1817 the first endless-sheet paper machine was set up in Wilmington, revolutionizing the busi ness. Its manufactures of steam and street cars, machine tools, engines, boilers, etc., are known all over the globe. Next to iron and steel comes the dressing and manufacture of leather, in which Delaware takes a high rank Wilmington has several of the largest morocco plants in the world. The flouring-mill and textile industries are large. Paper is extensively made on the Brandywine, where, a few miles from Wilmington, the 'foremost and most in teresting manufactory in the State is located— the' great powder works of the Du Ponts, the oldest and largest of the kind in the country. The company was founded by the French exile Eleuthere I. Du Pont de Nemours in 1802 and till 1903 remained a family preserve; in that year it was turned into the E. I. Du Pont de Nemours Company with .a capital of $20,000,000. It now has in several States many kindred plants. Besides making all kinds of explosives upon a colbssal scale, the company is also mak ing many other articles, such as chemicals, sub stitutes for ivory, shell, leather, etc. The total Du Pont industries represent a capitalization of "$258,000,000. New Castle on the Delaware, six miles south of Wilmington, has the finest harbor in the State, and, since the location there of many large manufacturing concerns, among others a branch of the Bethlehem Steel Works and the largest shipbuilding plant in this country, has become the second largest and most prosperous city in Delaware. The vulcan ized fibre industry had its origin in the State and about seven-eighths of the world's output is made there. It is said that the waters of Delaware, like those of Ireland for linen, are adapted to the manufacture of that product. The canning industry throughout the whole State is very large and embraces corn, peas, tomatoes, string and lima beans, sweet potatoes, strawberries, blackberries, pears, apples, potato-chips, fish-roe, chicken, ham, oysters, soups and plum pudding. The canning alone annually averages over 30.000,000 *No. cans, of three pounds each. The 1917 crop was 33,139,320 ((No. cans.