Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1875-03-14
Union AND AMERICAN.
COTTON.
Some Points Relative to the
Growing Cotton Trade
Of Nashville.
Its Development From Year to
Year.
COTTON.
The Cotton Exchange.
Futures" and the Results.

FutureSs and the Results,
IS Anyone can see at q glance that Nashville
is the natural emporium for the cotton pro
duct of Middle Tennessee and North Ala
bama. Its geographical situation, its bank
ing facilities and its position with reference
to New York, make it such. But it re-
quires more than nature and accident to
build up trade. It requires energy, bust
ness tact, time and competition. It re-
quires honorable men.
Very little has ever been'published about
the cotton fraternity Of Nashville, and we
know that some points about this body of
men cannot fail to interest many of our
readers. We have taken a rough census of
them, with the following result: There
are at present twenty-eight Of the most sub
stantial firms to be found in the business
directory of Nashville, who handle cotton
on a considerable scale. Many Others re-
ceive small lots of cotton from the country
in the course of their dealing in other com
mercial. lines, but most Of all the cotton
that comes here is consigned 10 five houses
that we could uame.
There are thirteen houses devoted ex-
clusively to cotton. Some of the largest,
however, combine groceries or produce
with their cotton business. Ofthose deal
ing also in groceries we notice that there
are eight, and in produce, three. There are
seven factors proper, or houses that devote
themselve to receiving and selling on COM
mission, eight buyers and shippers and
three or more brokers. There are two
houses confined, TO storage, which is an i'm
portant item in the trade.
The individuals of the above firms num-
Der about sixty men, and they constitute
the cotton fraternity, which has been in
creased in numbers and icaPital gradually
for the past seven or eight years. For the
benefit Of those who have a wholesale con-
tempt for emiddle men, we viii say that
our cotton men are for the most part South
ern men, men that have grown up, so to
speak, viii. their clothes covered with lint,
and, therefore, men who know what they
are about when trading in the. snowy staple.
As an honest, straightforward, fair dealing
class, they are a set that can't be beat
There isn't q board in any market more
careful Of the interests Of their customers,
a large proportion Of whom are actual pro
duceTs.
The development Of the cotton trade IN
der their auspices has been a source Of
much qualification. Nothing indicates it
more satisfactorily than the receipts from
year to year. The receipts were:
Bales.
Last year. ..,,.....,,..s.,s.. .lOl,6l4
Year before. 1887
ear before that. 05,S30
Last year was the most prosperous ever
known. Our merchants won laurelslto rest
on during this year, and the drouth Of last
summer promised to give them a rest.
The estimate Of the receipts at this point
from the crop gathered last fall was then
commonly put down at $4,000 bales. But
it will be seen that they are already quite
that much, and the daily receipts are still
liberal. Up to this time last year they
were, in round numbers, $4,000. bales, and
the year before $1,000 bales. It is now a
question whether our receipts viii not
reach what they were year before last. 1t
is the opinion Of some Of the best judges,
however, that, from this time on, they will
be very light, much below what has been
usual after this date. The falling of has
already set in at most Of the Southern mar
kets, indicating that the bulk Of the crop
has been marketed much earlier. than ever
before.
Our cotton men have had leisure this
year 20 provide a convenience, which they
now consider indispensable and the need |
Of which hadgbeen long felt, i. e. the
COTTON EXCHANGE.
1t has been in operation since September |
last and has proved a most excellent thing. |
1t arose under difficulties and not without |
opposition. Its membership now embraces |
substantially the cotton interest Of the |
city. The difference wrought by the es-
Enlistment of this institution is that, |
whereas the cotton trade was carried on in
semi-darkness before, now it fIourisheth in
broad daylight.
There is another institution. for COZ
venience, which was much discussed about |
the beginning of the current trade year,
and which We hope to see established ere
long. We refer to the union warehouse
and compress, the object Of which, like
that of the grainy elevator, is to save ex-
pense in handling. This is all our cotton
business now lacks Of perfect development. |
s contract for its construction has been
proposed by our merchants TO the railroad
companies concerned, but it has not been
signed by the latter, though it was virtual
ly closed.
Speaking Of our Cotton Exchange, we
recall with pride a paper gotten up by the
Committee on Statistics and Information
in the early days Of January. The out
look was then, to many, as blue as indigo,
but they got up a brightside estimate of
the crop, which was sneered at in New
York and by the bears everywhere, but
which has been for some time in a fair
way to prove a true prophecy. It was an
transformations effort, but it was a food
gate shut down (as it were) to the cotton
that might have passed through our chan
nels at the low and rUinous figures Of that
time, but which is row selling at much
more decent prices. What pity it would
have been if that bearish deIusion Of a
maximum crop had deprived Nashville of
what she has gained by holding.
Our notes on the growth Of the trade Of
the city would be incomplete without some
to a recent Notwithstanding
in futures. The customers of our mer-
chants have been at this during the current
year on a very extensive scale. Obliged
to sell when prices were most depressed,
and believing firmly that the market would
advance, they made contracts on
q pretty large scale for futures. By this
means they hoped to come out all right in