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Modern Business Geography 
RAW MATERIAL IMPORTED BECAUSE THE HOME SUPPLY, 
THOUGH LARGE, IS NOT SUFFICIENT 
The United States produces great quantities of raw sugar, hides, 
wool, and other raw materials, bit the demands of the country are 
so large that still more is needed. 
Why we import raw sugar. The use of sugar has increased faster 
in the United States than in any other country except Great Britain. 
Here is the average consumption per person in the United States 
for certain years : 
1870 . . . 33 pounds 1890 . . . 51 pounds 1910 . . . 80 pounds 
1880 . . .39pounds 1900 . . . 59 pounds 1920 . . . 91 pounds 
With about one sixteenth of the world’s inhabitants, we consume 
one fifth of all the sugar. This fact shows how enormous is our buy- 
ing power. It also shows how much we spend for luxuries, for a large 
part of the sugar is used in candy and confectionery. 
The sugar-cane plantations of Louisiana and Texas, and the sugar- 
beet farms of Colorado, Utah, California, Michigan, and other states, 
yield only about a quarter of the raw sugar needed by our refineries; 
the Hawaiian Islands, Porto Rico, and the Philippine Islands yield 
nearly half. The rest must be imported from foreign countries, chiefly 
Cuba, which lies at our very door. The home production of sugar 
beets can be greatly increased, but whether this pays or not depends 
on whether our tariff and the consequent price of sugar are high enough 
to keep out the sugar of India, Germany, Cuba, Russia, and the other 
great producers. 
Why hides and skins are imported and where they come from. An 
enormous quantity of leather, in such forms as shoes, gloves, belts, 
suitcases, coats, and the upholstery of chairs and automobiles, is 
consumed in the most progressive countries. Our country probably 
consumes more per person than any other. Each year we make more 
than a billion dollars’ worth of leather and leather goods. It is no 
wonder, then, that the hides supplied by our cattle, cows, and horses, 
and the skins from our sheep and goats. are insufficient to supply the 
needs of American tanneries. 
Every year foreign countries supply the American market with one 
or two hundred million dollars’ worth of hides and skins. Nearly every 
country in the world sends at least a few tons. Poor and backward 
countries with scanty pasturage, such as India and Mexico, send great 
quantities of goat skins, for the goat thrives under conditions that