Sixteen new plants for the forging and machining of cannon were built by the Government at a cost of $35,000,000. Two siege gun plants and twenty-six plants for the making of gun carriages and recoil mechanism were completed at a cost, altogether, of $65,000,000. One of the plants for the making of cannon, of which the construction is typical of all, was wholly brought into being after our entrance into the war. Ground for the factory was broken in July, 1917, and in nine months from that date the first completed gun was ready for shipment. The decision early in our participation in the war that our artillery equipment should conform in general to the standard calibers of our war associates made it necessary to alter our existing facilities and create new ones, but the coöperation it made possible resulted, in the end, in a more rapid equipment of our Expeditionary Forces although it delayed somewhat the beginning of our production. Ordinarily it takes a considerable time to manufacture artillery, big guns requiring two years and lighter ones from six to ten months. We had to create new plants, new tools, new processes. But at the end of the war we had done all this and had produced 5,000 trench guns, 4,900 light and medium guns, 695 heavy guns and 19 railway guns and mounts--more than 10,000 complete artillery units, and a total of 30,880 units had been contracted for. Many gun forgings and completed guns had been sent to England and France and many spare parts had been supplied to our own Expeditionary Forces. At the signing of the armistice an output of about 500 guns a month had been reached. Among them were 155 mm. howitzers, of which we had reached a sufficient production to exceed our own needs and 600 had been sold to France. There were also 7-inch, 14-inch and 16-inch guns, mortars and howitzers mounted on railway carriages that could be moved quickly from place to place. A 75 mm. field gun and an 8-inch howitzer, each self-propelling and mounted on a caterpillar tractor that could climb hills and knock down trees, were ready to be sent overseas and were the advance couriers of a quantity production in these types that was already beginning. Several kinds of caterpillar tractors of from two to ten tons were designed, produced and put to the service of the artillery.