the growth is merchantable. The soil for the most part and chiefly in the east is fertile, with a rich vegetable mold, the western and northwestern sections, where the rainfall is scant, being of sparse vegetation, and that mainly of sagebrush and cactus. The winter is short and mild, the temperature at normal being near freezing-point, though sometimes falling to 20° below zero, and rising in summer to 80° and even 115°. The average rainfall is 31.8 inches, a condition of climate and soil advantageous to an agricultural and stockraising state.
Natural Resources. It is claimed that the new dual state has not far from 250,000 farms (most of them cultivated by their individual owners), the extent and variety in the production of which are well-nigh a marvel, especially if it be borne in mind how comparatively recent is white settlement. So rich is the soil, so favorable are the normal climatic conditions, that wheat attains a high degree of perfection; while, besides its growth of cereals, including a phenomenal annual corn-crop and all the farm-products found in the other states, it raises cotton, hay, barley, potatoes, all kinds of vegetables, broom-corn, castor-beans, sorghum, peanuts and melons, in addition to a wide variety of fruits, including peaches, grapes, strawberries and many other small fruits. Of late years its annual corn crop has been not far short of 95,000,000 bushels and its wheat crop 25,000,000 bushels. Stockraising on its great areas of excellent pasturage is another large and profitable industry. The value to-day of its domestic animals, including horses, mules, dairy cows, and other cattle, together with sheep and swine, by last census, is not much below $153,000,000; while the yield of the mineral products approaches $35,000,000. Crude petroleum is produced to the extent of almost 52,029,000 barrels; while natural gas also is among the natural resources, together with large deposits of building-stone of excellent quality, including granite, marble, sandstone and limestone, besides areas, especially in the northeast, known to be rich in coal-seams. Its supply of timber is not large, though in a measure compensated for by its stores of petroleum and natural gas. Other minerals include salt, asphalt, gypsum, tripoli, phosphate, zinc, lead, copper and indications of gold. Of the oil and coal product a writer in The New York Times recently remarked that “Some of the richest oil-fields in America are in Oklahoma. The Glen Pool oil-district, south of Tulsa, between Red Fork and Mounds, has between 450 and 500 producing oil-wells, with a total capacity of 100,000 barrels a day. The first was sunk in December, 1905. Pipe-lines have been constructed for the transportation of this oil to the Texas seaboard and to the refineries at Whiting, Ind. More than $10,000,000 has been invested in tanks, pumping-stations and pump lines in Tulsa County. Eastern Oklahoma, which is not so uniformly even as the western portion of the state, produces more than 3,000,000 tons of coal a year, for which its mines receive about $6,000,000. The coal-field extends from the vicinity of Tulsa on the north to the Texas line on the south, and is more than 100 miles broad. The state contains about 150 coal-mines, employing about 10,000 operators.”
Manufactures. Oklahoma has more than 2,300 manufacturing plants, representing investments aggregating $38,873,000 and employing 13,143 wage-earners. These plants include flour-mills, oil-mills, cotton-gins, broom-factories, brick and tile works, salt-works, cement-factories, woodenware and carriage works. The two chief manufacturing centers are Oklahoma City and Guthrie, the former being an important milling seat.
Commerce and Transportation. The commerce of the chief towns is assuming large and rapidly increasing proportions. The freight into and out of Oklahoma City in 1912 amounted to about $4,890,000, while the value of the buildings erected that year was $885,246. The assessed taxable property of the state (1910) was $860,000,000; while its railway mileage is nearly 6,000 miles. The chief lines traversing the state embrace the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific; Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé; Missouri, Kansas and Texas; Missouri Pacific; Kansas City Southern; and Texarkana and Fort Smith roads. It has 20 railroads in all. The receipts and expenditures of the state are about $6,000,000 annually. It has 276 national banks, with an aggregate capital of about $13,000,000 and individual deposits amounting to nearly $52,000,000. The state banks (some 631 in number) have an aggregate capital of $9,666,000 and total deposits amounting to close upon $38,000,000.
Education. The school population in 1911 numbered about 557,000; some 400,000 were enrolled, while the average daily attendance was in the neighborhood of 260,000, the teachers numbering about 10,000, two thirds of them being women. The school expenditure in the year named was close upon $6,760,000; the state has a large invested fund for educational purposes, including the training of teachers, undertaken at normal schools and institutes in several localities. Higher education is represented by the University of Oklahoma at Norman, with 36 instructors and 600 students; the university's tuition is free to local residents; it also has a preparatory department, a college of arts and sciences, including (in addition to the ordinary collegiate subjects) courses in medicine and engineering; it also has a school of pharmacy and one of fine arts. Among other higher educational institutions are an Agricultural and Mechan-
