Agricultural Imports

While the agricultural exports of America are receiving a great deal of attention, our agricultural imports are rarely if ever mentioned. And yet, as the Department of Agriculture recently pointed out, during the fiscal year our importations of agricultural products for the first time in history exceeded sales of our agricultural products abroad. During the year ending June 30, 1923, our imports in this class (including forest products) were valued at $2,315,000,000 or $780,000,000 more than in the year pre ceding; while our agricultural exports amounted in 1922-23 to only $1,927,000,000, which was $82,000,000 less than in 1921-22. Thus, whereas in agricultural products we had a "favorable" trade balance of $474,000,000 in 1921-22, in 1922-23 the "unfavorable" balance amounted to $388,000,000.

This curious reversal last year was due mainly to depression on our farms and prosperity in our manufacturing centers. While our farmers found their foreign markets largely disrupted, our manufacturers bought raw foreign agricultural products in large amounts.

In 1922-23, our imports of silk amounted to $414 millions; of sugar, $369 millions; of coffee, $182 mil lions; of crude rubber, $169 millions, and of wool, $167 millions. In the same period our exports of wheat totaled $192 millions, and of corn $75 millions. In all the above imports, last year's figures exceeded those of 1921-22, while our wheat and corn exports were far under those of the preceding year. Pork and cotton exports showed increases, but they were counterbalanced by the huge increases in all imports.