reporting. This sum represents the value of land, buildings, machinery, tools, and implements, and the live capital utilized, but does not include the capital stock of any of the manufacturing corporations of the state.

The value of the products is returned at $262,655,881, and its production involved an outlay of $6,554,424 for salaries to officials and clerks, etc.; $35,484,825 for wages; $13,273,648 for miscellaneous expenses, including rent, taxes, etc., and $173,425,615 for material used, mill supplies, freight and fuel. It is not to be assumed, however, that the difference between the aggregate of the sums and the value of the products is, in any sense, indicative of the profits in the manufacture of the products during the census year. The census schedule takes no cognizance of the cost of selling manufactured articles or of interest on capital invested, or of the mercantile losses incurred in the business, or of depreciation in plant. The value of the product given is the value as obtained or fixed at the shop or factory. This statement is necessary in order to avoid eroneous conclusions from the figures presented.

The value of products for the state, is the gross value and not the net or true value. The difference between these two should be carefully noted. The gross value is found by adding the value of products in the separate establishments. (The finished product of one establishment is often the raw material for another. In such cases the value of the former reappears in the latter and thus the original cost of certain materials may be included several times in the gross value.) In this way the duplications in the gross value are eliminated. The net or true value is found by subtracting from the gross value, the value of all materials purchased in a partly manufactured form.

From the answers to the questions asked by the census of 1900, the net or true value of products may be computed. Thus, the gross value of products for 1900 was $262,655,881, the value of materials purchased in a partly manufactured form was $72,341,746. The difference, $190,314,135, is the net or true value of products and represents the increase in the value of raw materials resulting from the various processes of manufacture.

Table 1 shows that there has been a steady growth in the manufacturing and mechanical industries of the state during the last decade. The population during these years increased from 1,301,826 to 1,741,986 or 33.8 per cent, while the average number of wageearners employed in manufacturing establishments increased from 66,790 to 77,234, or 10,424 persons, being 4.4 per cent of the entire

population as against 5.4 per cent in 1890. It will be seen that the number of wage-earners in manufacturing industries during the decade, has not increased at the same ratio as the total population of the state. The cause for this, however, is evident; the development of the agricultural lands has caused a great influx of immigrants into the state, the greatest portion of which has settled down in the northwestern country districts, and following agricultural pursuits, and while the census returns give the average number of wage-earners for 1900 as having been 77,234 persons yet the greatest number employed at any time during the year was 113,509 or 6.5 per cent of the total population. Considering the relative numbers of women, and children under sixteen years, as to the average number of male wage-earners, we observe that in 1900 one woman was employed to eleven men, here in 1901 the relation had changed to one woman for seven men. In 1900 one child under sixteen years of age was employed to 97 adults as against 92 in 1890. This indicates a reduction of child labor in manufacturing establishments and verifies the statement as to child employment made elsewhere in this report.

An increase of 16.8 per cent in the total amount of wages is also shown for 1900, and computations give the total amount of wages to the average wage-earners as $459 as against $435 in 1890.

It appears from table 4 that there has been an increase during the past decade in the manufactures of the three principal cities in the state. Although the number of establishments decreased from 4,443 to 4,392, or 1.1 per cent, the average number of wage-earners increased from 43,297 to 48,199 or 11.3 per cent and the value of products from $124,769,770 to $160,113,030 or 28.3 per cent.

In Minneapolis, the leading manufacturing city in the state, the number of establishments decreased from 2,723 to 2,368 or 13 per cent, but the number of wage-earners increased from 23,703 to 26,608 or 12.3 per cent, and the value of products from $82,922,974 to $110,943,043 or 33.8 per cent. The number of establishments, number of wage-earners, and value of products in this city in 1900 constituted 21.3, 34.5 and 42.2 per cent, respectively, of the totals for the state. Minneapolis leads in two of the most important manufacturing industries of the state, the manufacture of flour and grist mill products, and the manufacture of lumber and timber products. It was these industries that the city found the first important factors in its development. Minneapolis holds a prominent position also in the manufacture of foundry and machine shop products, malt liquors, and linseed oil.

In St. Paul the number of establishments increased from 1,442 to 1,591 or 10.3 per cent; the number of wage-earners from 16,279 to 17,593 or 8.1 per cent; and the value of products from $33,035,073 to $38,541,030 or 16.7 per cent. St. Paul early became the northwestern depot of the Hudson Bay Fur Company, and from that beginning it has developed into an important fur manufacturing center. It also leads the cities of the state in the factory manufacture of boots and shoes, and of men's clothing; in the printing and publishing of newspapers and periodicals; and in railroad repair shop work.

Duluth made the greatest gains in number of establishments, capital, number of wage-earners, and wages. The city is an important center for the manufacture of lumber. In 1900 the quantity sawed in Duluth was 305,000,000 feet, the product of what is known as the Duluth district being much larger.

The comparative exhibit of the eleven leading industries of the state, presented in table 6, no doubt is of great interest. The eleven leading industries in 1900, embraced 2,500 establishments, or 22.5 per cent of the total number in the state; used a capital of $110,654,790 or 66.7 per cent of the total; gave employment to 35,862 wage-earners or 46.4 per cent of the total number, and paid $17,528,938 or 49.4 of the total wages. The value of their products was $177,172,025 or 67.5 per cent of the total.

Flour and grist milling is the most important industry in the state. In the year 1900, 512 establishments with 4,086 wage-earners or 5.3 per cent of the total wage-earners of the state have been reported, and their products were valued at $83,877,709 or 31.9 per cent of the total value of the products of the state. The corresponding figures for 1890 were 307 establishments, 3,509 wage-earners and products valued at $60,158,088, showing an increase in the value of products during the decade of $23,719,621 or 39.4 per cent, which is the greatest absolute increase in any industry of the state. The census report recounts the development of this industry in the following manner.

In 1900 Minnesota had 11 per cent of the total capital invested in the manufacture of flouring and grist mill products in the United States, and led the states in this regard. In 1890 this percentage was 9.4, New York and Pennsylvania preceeding in the order named. The value of the products of the Minnesota mills in 1900 was 15 per cent of the total value of the flouring and grist mill products of the United States. In 1890 this percentage was 11.7. In 1900 no other state approached Minnesota's total; New

York the second in rank, having a value aggregating a little more than one-half.

The first manufactory established in Minnesota was a sawmill, constructed in 1821 for the use of the United States garrison at Fort Snelling. It stood upon the west side of the Falls of St. Anthony, in what is now a part of the City of Minneapolis. In 1823 it was fitted up for grinding flour at an expense of $270.38 for the millstones and the cost of transporting them from St. Louis. The labor of erecting this mill and placing the stones in position was performed by the garrison, with no additional outlay. From this beginning have developed two of the greatest manufactures of the state-the milling of flour and grist and the sawing of lumber and timber. These, with the manufacture of planing mill products, furnish a trifle over one-half of the value of the manufactured products of the state in 1900.

FLOUR AND GRIST MILLING.

The development of flour and grist milling industry was very slow. For a long time little faith was placed in the future of Minnesota agriculture, and for many years the state did not raise sufficient wheat to feed its own population. The second grist mill was erected in 1843, but, like the one built twenty years before, it had no bolting apparatus. The first bolting cloth was introduced in 1846 by Mr. Samuel Bowles, a miller in Washington county. The development began about 1858, in which year the first considerable shipments of wheat were made to other states. Wheat raising was stimulated by the high price which prevailed during the early sixties. The wheat then raised in Minnesota was the same variety as is now grown in the state, and was known as spring wheat. By the methods of milling in general use prior to 1870, the hard outer covering of this wheat was more or less pulverized, and passed through the bolting cloth with the flour. As a result, the flour made from spring wheat was darker than that made from winter wheat, and made a darker bread, while the fine particles of bran mixed with the flour extracted moisture in hot or damp climates, so that the flour soon spoiled; therefore it could not be readily exported. For these reasons its value was considerably less than that of flour manufactured from winter wheat. In the markets of Chicago and Buffalo five bushels of spring wheat seldom sold for as much as four bushels of winter wheat of the same general grade.

Prior to 1870 practically all of the flour of the world was made by what is now known as the old process of low grinding in which the upper millstone was set low, or very close to the lower, and the wheat was reduced to flour by one operation. Between 1870 and 1890 this method of making flour gave place to what is usually called the new process of milling, or the manufacture of flour by medium high grinding. This, in turn, gave way to the use of rollers.

The new process of making flour was introduced into the United States by Mr. N. LaCroix, a French millwright, who settled at Faribault, Minnesota, about 1860. It attracted little attention until after the destruction by flood of his small mill, when he removed to Minneapolis, and entered the service of Mr. Christian, who at once adopted his method. Other millers of that city soon followed, and thereafter the growth of milling industry was phenomenal. The mills attracted the wheat of the state to the village by the Falls of St. Anthony, and in a few years with the accompanying stimulus to the other trades and industries, created a flourishing city. The new process spread over the United States and attracted the attention of the world. Large quanties of flour were exported, whereas previously very little had found a foreign market, the exports of breadstuffs being chiefly in the shape of grain.

Briefly outlined, the new process as introduced consisted of reducing grain to flour by two or more successive and distinct grindings. As a result of the first grinding, the grain was reduced to small particles or granules. The resulting chop, as it is called, was passed through the bolting apparatus and separated into its component parts; flour, middlings and bran. The flour thus obtained was of an inferior grade. The middlings, containing the more valuable portion of the wheat, were reground on separate stones. Later, rollers were substituted for stones, but the principle governing their use remains substantially the same as in the system of high grinding with stones. It is the gradual reduction of the grain to flour by a number of distinct processes, instead of by one grinding, as was the time-honored custom. By this system the bran is removed as completely from spring wheat flour as from flour made from winter wheat. With this change spring wheat flour at once began to sell for a higher price than flour made from winter wheat, for it was richer in gluten and otherwise more valuable. The relative prices which the two kinds of wheat had commanded were reversed. The average price of Minnesota wheat advanced to from