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Show ! Aisce)a;ij :i i Automobile Growth. Ti.re have r cen many at rvtpts to sr.:1 u-;!e rubber from this L-vur.vy to '-':': n;;ny. Xut lony hl:o El'il'.sh j.n.: L-iort? fy oid i-i:nnks of rubber in evt-vy one of -M .shilis ot t'o;': ee which a Nor v. up., a i: s;iip bin i t. -a !. d a ros.- i :m- ii.Oiin i: om Nh-w Vurk. Kv.-ry chvnk w.-.s dotted over With .'uiu-e in.-;uis. Wiiirh the soiUU'-ilrs had ;turhrcl i the rubber lo order thai e;t:!:inw ir.'iu be nhsltd. Why must (b-riih; rr. h:u rubber? H is iitejnl for t":'.' iiris of automobile trucks us J hi war. and '."bTr-.atiy's synthetic or artificial rubber is not a satisfactory substitute. We nerd and use lie re pre at quantities of mi'"' be r. Our imports last year were HoX '.'i i. Hurt w urth. and in the last throe years they have amounted to J.000, ' 0". It tfoes into motor vehicles, many of which we have sold to the allies, whp paid us S'JT.OUO.OOO for them hist year. This lea Is op to some consideration of the remarkable firowih of our automobile indti:-ti m nd the recent sreat increase of the number of cars in use In the I'niied States. Many Americans do not realize huw extraordinary and important this growth and this increase are. They are like ioms New Yorkers who do not know that, the sklyine of their city, as seen from the harbor, is one of t he wonders of the world. Registration records show that almost. 3.0ih,OOU automobiles . a 2 . -4:';5) are now in use here, and that the fees paid into state treasuries in tiie first half of the present year were SI 4.261,000. Rut the rate of growth shows that there may be B.fmO.OOO cars going about in this country three or four years hence, with a proportionate increase of fee receipts. There ate trustworthy and exact reports re-ports about this growth. The number of cars produced at the ninety-nine factories fac-tories in the first half of this year was 7."i1.;hi2. ha vine: a retail price value of $4.yi,niKi,00M. Probably the number made in the entire year will not be less than l.r-.0P.0fi0. But only 892.000 were manufactured manufac-tured In 101ft. and about 500.000 in the preceding year. Here are increases of more than 75 per cent In the first of these years, and. probably, 6S per cent in the second. While exports have been exceptionally excep-tionally larjio, in the last twelve months they were less than one-fifteenth of our output. Horses might look at the fig-ures wiili dismay. In them there is much supsestivc material ma-terial for essayist and economist. Perhaps Per-haps what the automobile does for farm life comes first, with the use of trucks in trade second. In Iowa there may be seen a motor vehicle for every thirteen inhabitants; In Nebraska one for every I teen. While the. s;ib-e.-t has not been -licr.d. n::,..L: rea::.s to be said aoout , li;c- rrs lit of h!.-,.:r:-s as to the rffect : 1,1 isi nah'.'. and otherwise of ' ;: '-' ci.obile ouiiJ.it growth. New i ork j im : i |