The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1879-09-12
Home Enterprise.

The prosperity of n commonwealth depends
not upon the devotion of its population to any
single pursuit, but upon the distribution of it's
forces upon such industrial enterprises as dove
tail into each other, giving strength nud dura-
bilty to the commonwealth. The devotion to
cotton culture in our Southern country has ab
sorbed all other interests. Everything is subs
servient to cotton. All caleulations as to the
future are based upon eotton.t We grow cotton
TO buy orr bacon, flour, lard, corn even to buy
our buckets, tubs, brooms, baskets, hoes, SHOW
els, pioughs, wagons, buggics, carriages, hats,
shocs md n thousand other things that could
MS well be made at home with profit to all par
ties. The very bagging and ties for our cotton
bales are made abroad, while the cotton itself is
sent of to be manufactured into fabrics, to be
brought back to us in increased value. which
should have been made Mt home. Mr.. William
Gregg, of Graniteville, labored assiduously for
years to impress upon the Southern capitalists
the Importance of working up our cotton mt
home, and Granitcville and Vaucluse stand as
monuments of his sagacity. There are all over
The State water power facilities, superior to
Lowell, side by side with the cotton plantation,
and in every such section are to be found needy
persons with nimble fingers and anxious hearts
Ionging for some means by which they could
earn an honest livelihood and bring up their
families with credit. 1t is remarkable with
what reluctance an agricultural people ea.brace
any project outside the plantation routine
They will go frantic after any humbug that will
increase the production Of cotton-pay fabulous
prices for fancy seed, fancy fertilizers or imple-
mcnis, hut suggest the proprety OF introducing
any machinery by which the staple can he con-
Ncrted into n more valuable frabric and the
cold shoulder is turaed to You ut once. More
than twenty years ago n Mr.. Henry, of Mobile
invented machine of great simplicity nv
which the cotton could he glnned and converted
into thread on the plantation, with very little ad-
ditional cost. and requiring very little skill II
met with little encouragement and was aban-
doned. How few people know that now such
manufacory is in successful operation at West
muster, Oconec County, on the Air Line Rail-
road. All the machinery is run by l2-inch
turbine wheel-the seed cotton is measured into
the gin by machinery and the lint separated
from the seed, carried in rolls to the spindcs
md run out into excellent thread. We have
been assured by persons who have tested il that
the thread is superior in strength to any in the
market. Hereby is saving in the expense of
bagging, ties, transportation and draying TO the
lint by packing. This factory runs 500 spin
dies, and turns out 40 lunches of thread per
diem. 1t consumes 10000 pounds seed cotton
per annum, and the whole cost of buildings
machinery, etc, did not exceed $4,000. Would
it not be better for farmers 10 combine and in
vest their money in such improvements as this
instead OF more fertilizers, more area in cultiva-
aion aud more mean cotton. Now is il not q
little singular that at a meeting of the State Ag-
ricultural Society and State Grange, n few days
ago in Chester, presided over by their chief Of
tieials Mr. Woodward, quondam President of
the State National Grange Society, should have
offered resolution for the Legislature to be
memorialized to offer n premium of $4,000 for
amy man who would invent such machine rs
the above, while the presiding officer of the So.
ciety, COL Crayton, lives in Anderson. q county
adjoining Oconee, made no response. prophet
hath honor save in his own country and in his
own housc.-Cor. Christian 1drocate.