“readiness to serve” and with an ability to carry the “peak load” without breakdown.
The percentage of net return on the capital value of the manufacturing industry was over twice as great in 1910 as the percentage of the net return on the cost of road and equipment of the railways. This disparity between the growth in capital value of agriculture and the capital value of the railways is greatest in that portion of the West where great extension of the railways and an increase in their facilities is necessary to keep them equal to the rapidly developing business. In 1910 in Colorado the value of farm lands and buildings was 284.1 per cent greater than in 1900; in Idaho, 479.1 per cent greater; in Montana, 305.7 per cent greater; in North Dakota, 313.9 per cent greater; in Oregon, 244.3 per cent greater; in South Dakota, 356.6 per cent greater; in Washington, 394.7 per cent greater; in Wyoming, 263.1 per cent greater. Yet in this time the gross capitalization of the railways in this western section increased no more than from 53 per cent in that district which includes the
