fine grazing region, however, and the dairy products are of the
best quality. Among European states Russia alone surpasses Germany in
the number of cattle grown. The province of Schleswig-Holstein is famous
the world over for its fine cattle. Cavalry horses are a special feature
of the lowland plain, and the government is the chief buyer. The wool
product has hitherto been important, but the sheep ranges are being
turned into crop lands, on account of the increase of population in the
industrial regions.

The midland belt, however, between the coast-plain and the mountains, is
the chief food-producing part of Germany. Rye and wheat are grown
wherever possible, but the entire grain-crop is consumed in about eight
months. The United States, Argentina, and Russia supply the wheat and
flour; Russia supplies the rye.

[Illustration: GERMANY AND SCANDINAVIAN COUNTRIES]

The sugar-beet is by far the most important export crop, and Germany
produces yearly about one million, eight hundred thousand tons, or
nearly as much as Austria-Hungary and France combined. This industry is
encouraged by a bounty paid on all sugar exported.[68] A considerable
amount of raw beet-sugar is sold to the refineries of the United States;
Great Britain also is a heavy buyer. The home consumption is relatively
small, being about one-third per capita that of the United States.
Silesia, the Rhine Valley, and the lowlands of the Hartz Mountains are
the most important centres of the sugar industry.

Germany is rich in minerals.[69] Zinc occurs in abundance, and the mines
of Silesia furnish the world's chief supply. Most of the lithographic
stone in use is obtained in Bavaria. Copper and silver are mined in the
Erz and Hartz Mountains. During the sixteenth century the mines of the
latter region brought the states then forming Germany into commercial
prominence and thereby diverted the trade between the North and
Mediterranean Seas to the valleys of the Rhine and Elbe Rivers.

These two metal products made Germany a great financial power. The
Franco-Prussian War added to Germany the food-producing lands of the
Rhine and Moselle, and the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. At the same
time it gave the Germans organization by welding the various German
states into an empire. As a result there has been an industrial
development that has placed Germany in the class with the United States
and Great Britain.

By unifying the various interstate systems of comm