The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-16
The Cotton Outlook.


From the N. Y. shipping and Commercial List
The receipts at the ports, though gradually
falling off, are still quite high for the season,
and from the commencement of the cotton
year, stand about thirty-two per cent. above
the corresponding period in 1868-G9. The
highest price of the season in this market was
thirty-five cents for middling upland, in the
early part of September, from which it gra-
dually declined to twenty-one and a quarter
cents, under the heavy fall in the gold pre-
MUM. From that point there has been a
recovery of about two cents, the current
quotation being twenty-three and
half cents. The popular estimates of
the current crop are two and three quarters
to three millions of bales, but should
the receipts during the next three or four
weeks fall off as heavily as anticipated by
many, some modification from the top esti-
mate is not improbable. The market during
the last fortnight has derived considerable
frmness from the unexpected strong tone at
Liverpool, which appears to have resulted
from tardy arrivals of the Indian staple, and
moderate stocks. AS to the course of prices
during the next few months, there is, as
usual, a diversity of views, though the popu-
lar opinion seems to be that until there shall
be a full years supply, and a considerable
augmentation of reserve to carry over to the
beginning of another year, for all the manu-
cline is not probable. Much, however, will
depend upon the condition of industries
now at rather low ebb on both sides of the
Atlantic.
The planting season at the South is now at
hand, and there is every Indication that an
increased breadth of land will be planted
under the stimulus of good prices. The cost
of producing cotton under the present system,
in the hands of good managing planters, it is
goi1 1,Nag ,,nfa NfC
many Of them in successful crop like this
one, make it for twelve cents, including in
terest on their investment, at current value.
AS q price equal to twenty cents leaves pro-
fit beyond that afforded by any other branch
of agricultural industry, the Southern plan
ters will be very apt to exert themselves to
the utmost to get in large area.
Meanwhile the English cotton manufac-
turers are making the most persistent efforts
to increase the supply in British India, in
order to successfully compete with the United
States. The maximum exporting power of
India, with high prices, is stated by leading
English authority at l 900, 900 bales; but now
that the impediments which have for seven
or eight years stood between the foreign
spinner and his normal source of supply are
| gradually being removed, point has proba-
bly, been reached from which the Indian
culture will retrograde, for it is a conceded
|
prices that country cannot compete.
AS to quality, it is simply physical
| impossibility for the Indian cultivator to
grow cotton at all comparable with ours. The
Indian staple is invariably short, harsh, and
| troublesome in the processes of machinery.
This is the Indigenous sort. Attempts have
been made to obviate the stubborn difficulty
by the importation and naturalization of
American seed. Even then the produce,
though superior to the native one, is largely
behind that in our Southern States In the
second year this degeneracy increases; and
soon the growth is as unacceptable as the
Surat In fact, foreign manufacturers have
no reliable sources but this country. The
dependence may be CALLING, but it is
g, unavoidable. Our climate and soil are
! fitted by nature to produce that pecu-
liar variety of raw material which cannot
be dispensed with in textile fabrics used
for wearing apparel. All this has long been
known, and if we now allude to facts SO
patent, it is because of the renewed efforts
in comparative hopeless rivalry. We shall
not only reach the ante 6eIIum production of
cotton, within very few years, but the Eng
iish spinners will not unlikely experience an
additional shock from the transfer of British
machinery and operatives to American soil,
where the conditions for manufacturing are
superior to any other part of the world. MIR
Cobdens significant ltterance that British
Indo cotton growers must be prepared for @
revival of American industry, and the com
petition of the world, is now in fair way
for full realization.