The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1880-09-03
The Future Possibilities Of Cotton.

Edward Atkinson, of Boston, with his wo !,
deriuh skill in the using OF facts to illustrate
problems, shows, in letter to the New York
heFald' that Cotton remains King of American
products In commercial point of view lie
SHOWS that the rs yet undeveloped resources
oil cotton will rrobababy turn out to be even
greater than those which we now know and use.
ilo says: "The true forces now in nction in tho
South are industrial forces the OPPORTUNITIES to
apply improvements and inventions, and for the
accumulation OF widely diffused wealth by right
iui methods The true reconstruction and the
real union that are now being consummated are
oy means OF these industrial forces, and in this
work cotton has been and will be the most no.
tent force Of ALL Slavery, he says, was econ
omically wasteful, and its remnan Is still tend 10
keep cotton culture in o wasteful state. Yet
there have been great improvements already, not
due entirely to the abolition Of slavery of course,
sat In large measure to slse fact that che rencr
raj impoverishment of the people has forced
them 10 give greater attention to their crops in
order TO secure the utmost possible yield In
ms way, from careful selection of seed AMI bet
ter culture, the plant natures earlier and has
been made more prolific, and hand can pick
| -" =" N"J ahu u ScISOn. 1 CT MT.
Atkinson thinks that what has been done is but
1.-THE of what remains the present power of
| Ming Cotton Is but the shadow of the substance
yet to come" The value of the seed, for in
| stance, is rs yet ON unknown quantity. If wa
| make six million bales, the seed left over after
oil has been saved that is needed for planting
amounts to three million tons. In other words
! the seed outweighs the clint that is separated
from II more than two TO one. If all this refuse
were treated rs small part of it is at present
| IN cotton-seed oil mills we should annually have
9O'OOO,OOO glllons of oil, 300, 900 tons of oil
cake or meal, and 500, 900 tons of hulls, from
which it is supposed that 75O 900 tons of paper
may be made. If the hulls cannot be made into
paper they can be ground up with the cake into
meal and fed to sheep, every ton being capable
In conjunction with the wild grasses of the South
to keep five sheep during year. Thus the waste
of the cotton fields will fatten sheep enough To
supply our woolen factories, while the sheen
folded on the cotton fields would so fertilize the
soil as to double the crop of cotton, and the NUT
ton could be sold abroad to the full extent of
any foreign demand. Yet the soil now in cotton
in the South is less than two per cent, of the
area OF the Southern States, and the only limit
to the extension of its culture is the power of
picking cotton. The future of cotton, when it
con DC secured as readily by machinery as the
wheat crop is now saved in Minnesota and Cali
fornia, is simply something incalculable. In
this connection Mr.. Atkinson truly says that
"there never was so great field suddenly opened
for the introduction of now tools, new cotton
gins, new presses and for every variety of imple.
ments and processes" 1t is for this reason
among others, that Mr.. Atkinson strongly urges
the setting on foot of great exhibition cxclu-
siVciy devoted to cotton, in order to probe thor
oughly "the secret Of its kingship.' What is
that secret. he asks. Is it because cotton or
cotton fabrics care almost a legal tender for all
the other commodities that tho world yields or
needs = Two hands, With their children, ON
good land, will make and pick twenty bales n
year, aad another hands labor will gin, bale
and move this cotton to mill, one operative will
convert 1t into 5000 pounds of coarse cloth
enough to clothe 600 Chinese or 5000 East
Indians for year. Thus tho work of four
hands per year on cotton supplies the clothing
needs Of four to eight hundred times as many
people. These things can only be properly
shown by means of great cotton exhibition, in
which oil the possibilities of the wonderful sta
pie can be adequately displayed, and Mr. At.
kinson calls upon the agricultural department
the cotton exchanges, the Northern associations
of manufacturers and the Southern associations
of planters and farmers to cooperate in bring
ing about the much.needed exposition There
has as yet been no such exhibition anywhere.
and one which should be adequately and prop
erly got up would astonish the world quite as
much as it would benefit the werlds foremost
industry.
NORTH WESTERN CORN CRor. Chicago, August