The State.. Arapahoe.. of them are exhausted, and only one or two The State is growing rapidly in agricultural importance. The soil is naturally of high fertility, and, through the cheap and effective method of irrigation by which the farmer is able to make a stream of water follow the plow almost at will, the risk of damage from long droughts is reduced to a minimum. The wheatlands are made to yield twenty-five bushels to the acre, and the luxuriantly growing native grasses furnish an abundance of excellent hay and forage. The extremely cold weather of the winter of 1880-'81 caused an unprecedented mortality among the herds of cattle on the plains. Herdsmen estimate the loss at nearly thirty-three per cent of the total stock in the State. The tax-list of 1880 showed a total of 541,563 head of cattle in the State, but, as it is well known that about one third of the herds escape the assessor, the actual number was probably quite 850,000. The number at the close of the year 1881 was estimated at not over 600,000, with a valuation of $16,000,000. The early spring and fine summer enabled the stock-raisers to make up for their winter losses in the year's sales, which surpassed those of any previous year, the price being from eight to twelve dollars higher per head than in 1880. Sheep also suffered severely in the storms of March and April, from forty to seventy-five per cent of the flocks perishing, according to location and the degree of exposure. The estimated number of sheep in the State is now 1,000,000, and their value is $3,000,000. It was believed that 100,000 buffalo skins would come from the Yellowstone region in 1881. This is without precedent in the fur trade. The last season 30,000 were received from the same region. The winter of 1880-'81 having been very severe and long, immense herds of bison concentrated in the few valleys where they could find subsistence. Their destruction continued during several months. The population of the State, by counties, with the native and foreign distinguished, as returned by the census of 1880, is as follows: Douglas.. Fremont.. COUNTIES. Chaffee Clear Creek Conejos. Elbert El Paso.. Gunnison Hinsdale.. Jefferson... Lake Larimer Ouray Saguache... Summit.. The records of the Auditor of State show the assessed valuation of Colorado for the year 1881 to be $96,059,985.48. The valuation of 1878 was $43,072,648.26; for 1879, $59,590,761.30; for 1880, $73,050,761.89, showing a steady annual increase of about thirty per cent. The number of acres of assessable land in the State is 2,155,340, which, with improvements, is valued at $15,168,790. The State Board of Equalization, in April, increased the assessment-rate on the main lines of railroads running through the State by $500 per mile. This makes the rate $6,500 per mile on broadgauge and $5,000 per mile on narrow-gauge roads. With 1,584 miles of railroad in the State, this gives a valuation of $11,638,055. The other items of the tax-list are as follows: Merchandise, $6,674,322; capital and manufactories, $865,626; town and city lots, $32,910,993; horses, numbering 70,133, $2,732,568; mules, $458,128; asses, $6,558; cattle, numbering 411,970, $4,611,359; sheep, numbering 634,542, which is far below the real number, $1,000,041; swine, $19,102; goats, $5,277; all other animals, $30,247; musical instruments, $239,230; watches and clocks, $250,513; jewelry, gold and silver plate, $106,866; money and credits, $3,473,847; carriages and vehicles, $767,753; household property, $607,138; all other property, $13,354,120; bank and other shares, $882,780; insurance premiums, $186,669. The number of business failures was 107, against 78 in 1880. The total liabilities were $763,000, and the assets $502,000, a net increase in loss sustained of $57,000 over the preceding year. The increase in the number of dealers was about one fourth. The total State debt on November 30, 1881, was $330,185.78, against which there was a balance in the Treasury of $45,064.97. The following is a statement of the operations of the State Treasury for the year ending November 30th, showing receipts amounting to $373,302.31, exclusive of cash in the Treasury, and an expenditure of $395,384.33: The railroad system and railroad business of the State developed with surprising rapidity during the year. In the ten months ending November 30th, the Denver and Rio Grande road, the most important line in the State, laid 629 miles of steel rails, and built 374 miles of new road. In that period its net earnings were $2,158,693, against $1,372,468 in the corresponding ten months of the preceding year. The Union Pacific Railroad's Omaha and Denver Short Line was completed, bringing the two cities fifty miles nearer together than by any other route. The wheat-crop of the State was about 1,600,000 bushels, against 1,425,104 in 1880, and 258,474 in 1870. Congress, by various acts, has granted to the State of Colorado 713,322 acres of land, divided as follows: For internal improvement, 500,000 acres; for. public buildings, 32,000; State penitentiary, 82,000; State University, 46,080; miscellaneous, including salt springs, 46,080; school lands, 57,152. For 420,596 acres of these lands the State has already received patents from the United States, and is in possession. Colorado is becoming a favorite resort for invalids, its many mineral springs and extremely salubrious atmosphere giving it a high reputation among the world's sanitaria. The subjoined table gives the elevation above the level of the sea of some of the prominent towns in the State: Feet. 845 55 Feet. Black Hawk Boulder.. 7,975 Idaho Springs.. 7,500 5,586 Lake City. 8,350 Breckenridge Cañon City.. Caribou.. Agricultural College (special) Insane Asylum.. Mute and Blind. *2,617 13 Chicago Lakes.. Colorado Springs.. 5,023 5,224 Pueblo. 4,679 Cattle round-up and inspection.. Penitentiary labor. School-fund apportioned. Interest on warrants paid.. 17,840 92 Wolf-scalps.. 2,835 50 Hawk-heads 4,875 50 Garland. Georgetown. Golden.. 8,146 Sunshine. 7,000 and flour were 185,000,000 bushels in 1881, about 180,000,000 bushels in 1880, and 143,000,000 bushels in 1879, aggregating for the three years 508,000,000 bushels, valued at $591,524,024. The exports of 1880-'81 thus exceeded those of the previous year, notwithstanding the better crops in Great Britain and Western Europe. This was owing to the depletion of stocks as well as to an increase in consumptive capacity. A reputation for American brands of flour has been established in England with such success that 8,500,000 more bushels of wheat were exported in the manufactured form in 1881 than in 1880. Prices ranged lower in 1881 than in the year preceding, so that while the quantity exported was 5,500,000 bushels greater, the total value was $13,000,000 less, or $211,277,588, against $224,705,803; while the value exported in 1879 was only $155,540,633. A calculation of the average export prices gives $1.15 per bushel in 1881, $1.25 in 1880, and $1.09 in 1879. Wheat exports for the last six months of the fiscal year 1880-'81 were unusually large for that portion of the crop year, being 11,000,000 bushels in excess of the exports for the corresponding half of 1879-'80. While the good crops of the West of Europe did not, therefore, lessen the demand for wheat, the exports of rye and oats showed a great falling off from those of the preceding fiscal years. The rye exports were 1,928,355 bushels, against 2,912,744 bushels in 1880, and 4,848,249 bushels in 1879; the oat exports, 358,250 bushels in 1881, 710,890 in 1880, and 4,654,794 in 1879. The exports of Indian corn were about 91,000,000 bushels in 1881, against 98,000,000 in 1880, and 86,000,000 in 1879. The only cereal of which the exports form a considerable portion of the crop is wheat. While the normal export demand will probably prove considerably Ïess when crops are fair in Western and Central Europe, there must be a constant and increasing demand for American wheat, which can be much more cheaply grown on the prairie humus than on the heavy and manure-requiring soils of Europe. If the American producers can adjust themselves without hardship to the normal demand, there will continue in action a favorable stimulus even after European rents have, to a considerable extent, vanished; while any cheapening in the cost of transportation will give the American producer a new advantage. Counting the crop of 1880 at 480,000,000 bushels, the exports of 1880-'81 constituted about 38 per cent of the total wheat product. The trade returns for the year ending June 30, 1881, show a larger total commerce than any previous year; a larger exportation of merchandise by 8 per cent than the preceding year, the next largest on record, and 33 per cent larger than the average of the last five years previous; merchandise imports almost as great as those of 1879-'80, when they were stimulated by a mania for speculation preva lent in the first part of the year; and a net importation of specie exceeding considerably that of the first year of resumption. The excess of exports over imports exceeded that of any other year except 1878-79. The imports exceeded in value, and greatly exceeded in quantity, those of the years preceding the panic, which consisted largely of railroad-iron, etc., which left an adverse balance of unprecedented magnitude, and which, it was thought, were far beyond the natural consumptive powers of the people, and would not be equaled again in many years to come. The export movement was so heavy in the earlier part of the calendar year, as soon as the railroads were free from obstructions and the canals open, that in the month of June they fell off nearly $9,000,000. The high price of provisions was the cause of much lighter shipments under that head. The table on page 122 affords a comparative survey of the foreign trade movements for the past twenty-one years. Including the specie imports and exports, the total foreign commerce of 1880-'81 amounted to $1,675,024,378. The increase of exports over those of the preceding year was $66,738,688. Since 1876, when the exports began to exceed the imports, the aggregate excess of exports has been $1,180,668,105 for the six years. The total value of the exports of domestic merchandise in 1880-'81 was $883,925,947, exceeding those of the preceding year by $59,979,594. The exports of breadstuffs, $270,332,519; cotton and its manufactures, $261,267,133; provisions, $151,528,268; mineral oils, $40,315,609; tobacco, $20,878,884; wood and its manufactures, $18,600,312; iron and steel and their manufactures, $16,608,767, and live animals, $16,412,398-constituted 90 per cent of the total domestic exports, the eight items summing up $795,943,890. The grain exports fell below those of 1879-'80 $17,704,316. In the exports of raw cotton there was an increase of $36,159,841; in the value of provision exports, $24,485,026 increase; in petroleum, $4,096,984; in tobacco, raw and manufactured, $2,436,611; in wood manufactures and timber, $2,362,932; in iron and steel and their manufactures, $1,892,243; in live animals, $530,278. A comparison of the returns of 1880-'81 with those of 1870-'71 shows that over four fifths of the total increase, amounting to considerably more than 100 per cent, is made up of the increased exports of breadstuffs, provisions, and tallow, cotton, live animals, leather, and wood and manufactures thereof. The increase in the annual exports of these commodities in twenty years amounts to $374,059,476; and four fifths of this collective increase is due to the increased exports of breadstuffs, provisions and tallow, and live animals alone. The products which have thus swelled the export trade are chiefly products of the Western and Northwestern States. The increase in the exportation of the products of that part of the country is traced by the Chief Value of Imports and Exports of Merchandise from 1861 to 1881, inclusive-Specie Values. of the Bureau of Statistics to the recent extension of railroads and the great reduction in the cost of railroad carriage from the West to the Atlantic sea-board. Of the total receipts of grain in 1880 at New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Boston, and Portland, amounting to 319,696,057 bushels, 76-97 per cent was brought by rail, and only 22.24 per cent by the Erie canal. The average freight-rates for transporting grain from Chicago to New York for the last three years compared with the average rates for 1870, 1871, and 1872, show a reduction in this charge of 9.8 cents on a bushel. The average reduction in the railroad transportation rates amounts to 144. The mean reduction in the cost of carriage between the two points is about 13 cents per bushel. This is equivalent to 11.7 per cent on the export price of wheat and 23.55 per cent on the export price of Indian corn in 1881. According to the researches of Joseph Nimmo, Jr., Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, the tonnage on twelve of the leading railway lines increased between 1873 and 1880 from 45,557,002 to 78,150,913 tons, or 71.5 per cent, while the freight receipts increased from $112,004,648 to $143,388,178, or only about 28 per cent. The average rate per ton per mile was reduced from 1.72 cent to 107 cent, a decrease of 39.5 per cent. The tonnage transported on the New York Central, Erie, and Pennsylvania Railroads was three times as great in 1880 as in 1868, while the average freight charges were 60 per cent less. Between 1870 and 1880 Exports, 259,712,718 there was a reduction of 39-45 per cent in the freight charges of those roads, and of 32:51 per cent on the rates of the New York canals, while the decrease in the average prices of the prime necessaries of life in the same period was only 12:32 per cent. The wheat exports have increased under these changed conditions from $17,171,229 in 1870 to $167,698,485 in 1881; the value of maize exported, from $1,287,575 to $50,702,669; of provisions, from $29,175,539 to $151,528.268; of live animals, from $1,045,039 to $16,412,398. The value of all the exports of agricultural products in 1881 amounted to $729,650,016, an increase of $43,688,925 over those of 1880. Their value constituted 82:55 per cent of the total exports of domestic merchandise. It was seven times the value of this class of exports in 1850, nearly thrice the value of such exports in 1860, and more than twice their value in 1870. The growth of the total export trade has been at about the same rate of progression. The ratio of agricultural products to the whole value of the exports does not deviate, in comparing the years 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1881, more than 3 per cent. Of the total value of imports in the fiscal year 1881, aggregating $642,664,628, the imports of sugar and molasses constituted 14:53 per cent, amounting to $93,404,288; the value of the imports of coffee amounted to $56,784,391, or 8.84 per cent of the total; of iron and steel and manufactures thereof, to $46,439,747, or 7-23 per cent; of silk, raw and manufactured, The excess of exports decreased in the last half of the calendar year, due mainly to the smaller supply of breadstuffs for exportation. The wheat crop, though only 400,000,000 bushels, against 500,000,000 in 1880, yielded about 3 per cent more to the farmers. China Italy Spain... Japan.. Russia on the Baltic and White British West Indies, United States of Colombia.. Venezuela Minor Spanish possessions Dutch East Indies British possessions in Australasia Hong-Kong.. Portugal.. Central American states. French West Indies. Austria.. Dutch West Indies. Gibraltar. Newfoundland and Labrador. Turkey in Europe.. The total value of imports of merchandise British East Indies.. entered for consumption in the United States amounted to $650,618,999. The value of dutiable merchandise amounted to $448,061,587.95; merchandise free of duty to $202,557,411. The total amount of duties collected upon imports amounted to $193,800,879, and constituted 43-25 per cent of the value of the dutiable merchandise entered for consumption. Of the total amount of duties collected on imports the duties on sugar and molasses amounted to $47,984,032, or 24-79 per cent; the duties on wool and woolen manufactures to $27,285,624, or 14:10 per cent; the duties on iron and steel and manufactures thereof to $21,462,534, or 11.09 per cent; the duties on manufactures of silk to $19,038,665, or 9.84 per cent; the duties on manufactures of cotton to $10,825,115, or 5.59 per cent; the duties on flax and manufactures thereof to $6,984,374.90, or 3.60 Chili... per cent. The duties collected on these six cominodities and classes of commodities amounted to $133,580,347, and constituted 69.01 per cent of the total duties collected on imports. There was collected at the port of New York $136,211,127.38, or 70.28 per cent of the total import duties received during the year by the Government. The aggregate balance of trade in favor of the United States in the commerce of the year with those countries which received American exports in excess of the value of the imports from them, was $441,675,687. The aggregate adverse balance in the commerce with those countries from which the United States imported merchandise to a greater amount than the value of the exports to them, was $181,962,969. The countries which received American exports largely in excess of Russia, Asiatic.. their imports into the United States, are the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Denmark. The countries the imports from which largely exceeded American exports taken by them, were Cuba, Brazil, India, China, Japan, Spanish possessions_other_than_Cuba and Porto Rico, and the Dutch East Indies. The subjoined table gives the percentage of the total imports of the year furnished by each country, the percentage of the domestic exports taken by each, also the foreign exports, and the percentage of each one in the total import and export commerce of the United States, according to values: French possessions in Africa.. All other islands and ports... Dutch Guiana. 18 .39 1:ཀ ེ ::ཚེ ཚེ 1: : 1:2རྞྞ2༞ ཙྭ : སྔོཔྟཱཿ; ལྔ :: .06 ·06 ·05 05 05 ⚫02 100.00 100.00 100.00 100.00 The proportion of each of the principal seaports in the total export and import commerce of the year, as compared with 1879-'80, is shown in the table below, which gives the percentage of each port in the total merchandise trade each way. The gain of the minor ports not named is explained by the increased cotton shipments. An increase in the imports of one or two lake ports in October was due to shipments of Canadian grain, attracted by the spec |