The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-03-21
Another Argument in Favor Of. Cotton Fac.
tories.

Another Argument in Favor Of. Cotton Fac.
tories.
Another consideration in favor of cotton
mill, which seems to have been overlooked by
the advocates of the project, is the great
amount of time that is saved in the way of
converting the raw material into cloth. Ten
bales of cotton which remains six months baled
up, will entail loss in interest of about $50.
This, of course, with the cost of insurance and
storage, must be added to the value of the
cloth. A cotton mill here, among the rich
fields that produce the fibre in abundance,
would be free from this additional cost. Du-
ring the four or five months of the picking sea-
son the cotton could be taken from the plant in
the field and converted into cloth before night.
More rapid and wonderful work than this has
been done. Colonel Morgan had cotton fac
tory in Selma before the war; often said that
he gathered the cotton in the fields In the morn
ing and had the cloth from it rolling away on
the cars, in fulfillment of an order from some
distant town, that evening. Just think of the
wonderful effects of industry and skill-fve
hundred prounds of cotton, worth eighty dol5
lars in the field, is converted in the course of
day into fabrics worth three hundred dollars
The rapidity with which raw materials can be
wrought into marketable articles is startling.
A gentleman in England some time ago bet
five thousand dollars that he could shear two
sheep at five o'clock in the morning, and sit
down to dinner in suit made from their
wool before eight o'clock that evening. He sat
down at six with damson- -colored cloth that
had just come from the hands of the tailor,
made from the "snowy feeces" that was shorn
from the sleeps backs thirteen hours before.
The wool had passed through eighty different
processes during that time. Cotton may be
Al L. Lo~<
and that same night lady may attend ball
arrayed in beautiful fabrics made from it.
What an overwhelming advantage it would be
for us, then, to have mills right in the midst Of
our cotton fields that could send bales of cloth
into our market in as quick time as the bale Of
cotton comes at PRESENT. What an accretion
of wealth to us to have a three hundred dollar
bale of cloth put into the hands of merchant
to sell, instead of bale of cotton worth eighty
dollars! We have not as yet dreamed of the
possibilities of the future. We are in the
midst of untold wealth. If our enterprise
were only up to the possibilities of our situa-
ton, we should become the wealthiest people on
earth.
The New York Shipping and Commercial
List, in writing on the subject of Cotton Man
ufacturing in the South, says:
In Georgia and Alabama the most successful
efforts have been made in this direction, and
many thousand spindles are NOW running with
running in Alabama six factories, which num-
Der in the aggregate over forty-three thousand
spindles and consume upwards of twenty thou
sand bales of cotton annually. The fact is sig
nifcant of the changes which have been
wrought by the new order of things. In the.
days of slave labor, manufactures received very
little attention in that quarter. So long as they
had market for their cotton, the land and
slave owners were quite content with the tillagei
of their productive soil, leaving to Others and
other labor systems the manufacture of their
wearing apparel, and even the very instruments
with which they "ticSled the earth" to make it.
yield of its abundance. Now, all this is in
process of change. Mills and manufactures
are springing up in several of the cotton pro
ducing States. Northern capitalists are finding 1t
profitable, in conjunction with the owners OF
land and water power, to invest their money in
the erection of mills for the manipulation OF
the great Southern staple on the soil that quick
ened it. Heretofore, less than nSne-fifteenth Of
the cotton crop has been worked into yarn and
fabrics in Southern factories. In the future,
the local consumption of cotton will gradually
expand, albeit, with the superior faculties OF
some of the Eastern States, it is not probable
that the competition between the two sections
will for many years to come be very sharp, or
that the products Of Southern mills will find
their way North to any great extent. Nor is
it probable that the spread of manufactures in
the South will, to any appreciable extent, in
terfere with the manufacturing interests of the
North. All the products of Northern mills of
whatever description will find, as heretofore, q
ready market, and the increase in the demand
will 20 in direct ratio with the growth of the
whole country in wealth and population; while
the South, by eularging her productive facil-
tiles and her industries, will attain prosperity
only:equalled by her commercial and financial
independence. One of the best fields for en-
terprse in the South is the manufacture OF
Cotton Yarns. In this branch of industry the
South, with the advantages of having the raw
staple and unlimited water power at its doors,
would have no successful rival, and the value
of its cotton crop could be increased beyond
present computation.