Willis O. Nance, Alderman of Sixth Ward. Victor J. Schaeffer, Alderman of Twenty-second Ward. American Horses for Export. The world's stock of horses is 100,000,000, of which Russia has 25,000,000 and the United States over 24,000,000. Exports from this country during the four months, September to December, 1914, totaled 75,000 horses. It has been feared by some that there would be such large numbers exported to the warring European countries as to cause an acute shortage of horses in the United States. The Department of Agriculture, however, sees no immediate danger of this, and says that we could sell two or three times the number already exported without there being an appreciable shortage of work horses. Those which have been shipted are mediocre animals, which ordinarily sell for less than $100, and are of a class which we can well afford to be rid. The big demand for horses will probably occur after peace has been declared, when they will be needed for farming. The demands on this country, which has one-fourth of the world's supply of horses, will be large, and will probably continue for a number of years. Growth of American Silk Business. The silk manufacturers of the United States since 1880 have increased the value of their output from $41,000,000 to upwards of $200,000,000; have consumed in that time about 450 million pounds of raw material, and have increased their proportion of the domestic consumption of silk goods from a little over onehalf the total in 1880 to more than four-fifths in 1910. The fiscal year 1914 surpassed all previous years in the quantity of raw silk imported into this country, the total for that year, according to the figures of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce, being 342 million pounds, against 32 million in 1913, 13 million in 1900, 22 million in 1880, and a half million in 1870. |