The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-02-08
The Past. Present and Future of Cotton.

The commercial newspapers have been lately
printing some curious statistics about the
amount and value of the cotton crops of the
past years, as compared with that now on hand,
grown in 1871, and have ventured some predic-
tions for the future. The Jou,'aatof Commerce,
for example, goes back nearly fifty years, to
1925, and shows what the highest and lowest
price of midding upland cotton has been every
year since; and it is worth noticing that the
range of prices in 1926 was very much what it
has been in 1901. In these two last years,
with crop averaging nearly 1000, 600 of bales
for the two years, the price has varied from l44
cents a pound to 25a cents, while in 1926, when
the crop did not equal 1000, 900 bales, the price
varied from 13 to 81 cents. In the spring of
IS45 the price touched the lowest ever known
-four cents per pound-the crop of 1874 being
about 400 900 bales. 1t did not reach .3,0OO,-
6OO.bales till 1851, and in only three years since
has it exceeded 10000 namely, in 1858, 1859
and 1870, the latter year producing the largest
crop ever known, except. that of 1859, which
was reported in the census as over 6,0OOOOO,
but was really, according to the careful comPu-
tations of Mr. B. F. Morse, only 1864, 292 bales,
weighing 2343, 900 900 pounds. In 1870 there
were 4,352,317. bales, weighing 2,02l ,651, 900
pounds; but the value of this crop was greater
by nearly S90,0O0000 than that of the crop of
1859. The most valuable crop, however, was
that of 1869, which realized S242, $4,000 in
gold, though the number of pounds was less
than 1,5O0, 100000 and of bales only 3,122 16l.
The highest prices for cotton were in 1854 and
1866, when. it went up to S1.90 pound in the
midst of the cotton famine produced by our
civil war.
There are various estimates of the crop of
1871, but we do not see it less than $500, 600
r lf,,ro xr,bs oh
croaked good deal last summer, now raises its
estimate to 100000 bales; but it has always
under-estilnated the growing crop, and all the
later accounts continue to be favorable for q
larger crop than had been expected.
Still, compared with the demand for con-
sumption, the present crop is not large, and it
is no wonder that prices have gone up. 1t is
computed that there are now in motion in the
civilized world 100000 of cotton spindles,
viz: In Great Britain, 10000, 900; on the Con-
tinent, 100000; in America, 100000. Ac-
cording to an intelligent writer in the Boston
Journal, the British spindles are increasing 40,
900 per week, while the operatives employed
have risen from $50, 900 to 10000, and the cot.
ton spun in the last three years has been as fol-
lows: In 186S-69, 916,000,000 pounds; in
1869-70, LOGS 5,OOO, 900 pounds; in 1901, d..
| 176, ,OOO, 600 pounds. At this rate of progress
the manufacture of Great Britain in 1S71-72
if not checked by the advance Of prices woulc
reach 1,94O, ,00O 900 pounds, or S,950,O0O bales
of 400 pounds each.
The same author puts the aggregate con
sumption for the continent of Europe this yea
at 2,125,000 bales. To this we may add for the
United States at least 1,l25,000 bales, for it
consumption is now growing rapidly, the gair
in manufacturing power at Fall River alone
being in one year some $4,000 bales, and 5O,OO(
bales more for Mexico and Canada. Here is .
total consumption of which our country fur
nishes but litls more than half India pro
vides 100000 bales of cotton, of which bu
little more than 10000 bales come to Europe
Other regions yield about 100000 bales year
ly. s
The price of cotton, at the beginning of tht
year is almost twenty cents in gold. At thi
rate, which is quite likely to be maintained, i
is the best crop for the Southern States, and tn
rise since year ago will stimulate the planter
to put in more seed than in 1871. At highe
price than this the production of cotton il
India and elsewhere is stimulated, and Americ'
would soon have less control of this marke
than now. Our great crop of 1870 was, in on
sense, too large: it enabled us to export thre
millions of bales to Great Britain, France ant
Germany, nearly one hundred and fifty thou
sand more to Spain, Russia, Canada, Mexico
and other foreign States, and besides this t.
supply cur own factories with eleven hundred
thousand bales, while we laid by reserve o
one hundred and five thousand bales for TIL
future. But it overstocked the market at first
and brought down the price so as to discourag
the planters last spring, and, consequently, les
was planted than ought to have been. Proba
bly, steady crop of four million bales is what
for the present, this country ought to produce
in order to derive the greatest benefit from cot
ton production Republican.