Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-06-07

EXPENSE CULTIVATING HUNDRED ACRES
COTTON FOR YEAR 1866.
SO hands, average per month SIS. $4,000
Rations one year for same................ 6,640
Medicines and attendance ce................ 500
200 bushels cotton seed, 50 Cts per bushei. 1000
80 mules, Sl75 each Observation-Disclosures. $3.50
Implements and tools OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. 1000
Rent of land, $40 per cre................. 5000
Bagging and rope OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. LOO
Oyerseer. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 1000
Feed tor stock. Observation-Disclosures. 1850
2 wagons. NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. .... 400
2 sets horse harness NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.. 200
20 extra hands during picking" ......... 1900
Freights .................... 500
Government tax Sc. per lb, on 10000 lbs.
cotton, probable crop in bottom lands in
"good year. S32 bales. .............. 1880
Total cost. .s3e, 12O
PRODUCT
Under the most favorable auspices the
Mississippi planter would produce about
1872 bales whilst the Alabama or Georgia
planter would consider himself fortunate
did he secure one-haLf this yield. There
fore, we find that the Mississippi planter
has
932 bales lint cotton, or 166, 900 lbs, worth
at the gin, by present ruling, about zoe; .,o mn
Estimated value of mules, implements, &c.
Qess wear and tear. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. 5000
Total product. ........................ .s88, 200
Showing loss. OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES. 1920
We will now return to the Alabama or
Georgia planter, and here will be woe in
deed. His soil will only produce at best
one-half that of his Mississippi friend,
therefore his account reads, viz:
PRODUCTS.
166 bales lint or SO, 600 lbs cotton, worth at
Estimsted a va Value Of mules implements, &c. 5000
Total product. t.........................$ $2l 600
Thus it will be seen that the planter upon
the rich alluvial bottoms of the Mississippi
River can produce cotton at cost of about
nineteen to twenty cents per pound, and
that the Alabama, or upland planter, can
not produce it cost OF less than thirty
eight cents per pound. It therefore fol-
lows that the upland planter must discon-
tinue the raising Of cotton. The destruc-
ton of slaoe labor has destroyed his capaci-
ty as a cotton grower, and he must turn his
attention to other pursuits; hence three
quarters of the cotton regions of the Uni
ted States are to-day inhabited by despon-
dent agriculturalists, contemplating the
complete surrender of cotton growing as an
occupation And to this end and deter
mination must they come at last.
The planter located in the alluvlal lands
of the South, comprising about one-fourth
the area of cotton soils, will Of course con-
tinue in the production of cotton. He can
produce it when the government tax is re-
moved SO as to get small income there
from; and it now remains to Investigate
how many bales per year will come to mar
ket from these scattered regions of the
South.
Supposing four million bales of cotton
to be the maximum of cotton averaged
before the war from the South, and we
shall find that about one million bales per
year will be the amount of cotton raised in
the United States when all the foregoing
influences have come to be realized fully |
and acted upon and, as in the prosperous
times the United States consume yearly |
about q million and half bales in home
manufactures, it follows that we shall then |
be half million bales short of our year |
ly wants. Either this is true, or that the |
price of the staple must advance CORES |
pondingly with the cost Of producing it
upon the uplands of the South as well as
the richer portions of those States.
The people of the South understand
these facts better than we; they will sell
the plantations, which before the war cost |
them hundred dollars, for ten and twen-
ty thousand dollars. The price they put
upon these lands Uplands) is what they
are worth to raise the cereals upon ; moth
i11n more