industry is considerable, and the same may be said
of agricultural machinery, railway and street cars, and coffins. North
Carolina especially is taking rank in the manufacture of furniture, most
of it cheap but some of it of high grade. So far, ambition has in few
cases gone beyond utilization of the native woods, some of which are
surprisingly beautiful. Many small establishments in different States
make such special products as spokes, shuttle blocks, pails, broom
handles, containers for fruits and vegetables, and the like, but the
total value of these products is small compared with the value of the
crude lumber which is sent out of the South.

The iron industry is important chiefly in Alabama, of the purely
Southern States. This State is fourth in the product of its blast
furnaces but supplied in 1914 only a little more than six per cent of
the total for the United States. Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia
produce appreciable quantities of pig iron; no Southern State plays a
really important part in the steel industry, though Maryland, Alabama,
and West Virginia are all represented. Birmingham, Alabama, is the
center of steel manufacture and has been called the Pittsburgh of
the South, but though the industry has grown rapidly in Birmingham, it
has also grown in Pittsburgh, and the Southern city is gaining very
slowly. There are great beds of bituminous coal in the South, but only
in West Virginia and Alabama is the production really important, though
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia produce appreciable quantities.

In the total value of the products of mines of all sorts, West Virginia
and Oklahoma are among the leaders, owing to their iron, coal, and
petroleum output. Other Southern States follow in the rear. Alabama,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Florida, and Louisiana all have a
mineral output which is large in the aggregate but a small part of the
total. The sulphur mines of Louisiana are growing increasingly
important. North Carolina produces a little of almost everything, but
its mineral production, except of mica, is not important. In this State
large aluminum works have been constructed and the quantity of precious
and semiprecious stones found there is a large part of the production
for the United States.

The tobacco industry is growing rapidly in the South. There have always
been small establishments for the manufacture of tobacco, and many of
these during the last three decades have gro