the country. Without claiming that our own are absolutely free from error, we are prepared to maintain their substantial correctness and their superiority to any yet offered to the public. The product here shown is greater than that stated earlier in this book. The returns on which that statement was made seem to have been incomplete at the time of publication, unless the fault lies in the transfer of figures or in the footings, a kind of defect from which few public documents of a statistical character are wholly free. The number of breweries here given is less than the former statement, owing to the omission of a considerable number of the smaller establishments, concerning which no satisfactory information could be obtained, and the further omission of those whose owners were known to object to a publication of their business. The total product of all so left out is known to be inconsiderable, though it cannot be exactly ascertained. Those most apt to find fault with a public statement of the amount of their business are the smaller brewers, who sometimes fear that their business will suffer if it is known that they dispose of less beer than some rival. To such it may be said that a good business need not be a large one. There are plenty of men in the country who work on a comparatively small scale, and yet would not be induced to extend their operations. They make enough, as it is, to satisfy their wants, and they are not loaded down by the cares that attend a struggle to sell as much as possible. They fear no injury because their sale is not so large as that of some one else, and they are perfectly in the right, as experience shows. Still again, there are many small breweries to-day, that will be great fifteen or twenty years from now. We have shown in Appendix C something of the possibilities of sudden development in this business, and with the increasing taste for beer these opportunities will be better than ever. It is not against a brewery that it is small. Its product may be of the first quality, and it may be small simply because the owner does not care to have it large. Other considerations might be adduced, but it seems as if enough had been said to justify the printing of statistics prepared as are those here furnished, especially as they must be interesting to every one who makes a study of the beer question and wants as much and as varied information as he can obtain. SUMMARY OF THE BEER PRODUCT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE YEARS 1878 AND 1879, WITH THE INCREASE OR DECREASE DURING THE SECOND OF THESE YEARS.