The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1881-12-10
Progress and Prospects ot Cot
ION Milling liza the south.
Scientific American

oClentllC American.
One OF the fruits of the Atlanta
Cotton Fair has been a greatly in
creased attention to the work that
has been going on in the South, of
late years, in the direction Of cotton
manufacture.
The hopeful expectations cf those
who have engaged in the work,
with some of the more salient reas,
ons for their hopefuLn ess, have been
discussed at great length by the
correspondents of the daily papers,
among them a very intelligent
writer for the Times, who finds that
manufacturing in the South is the
one subject upon which men there
speak with entire confidence. Most
of them, he says, have some quail
fying doubts as 10 agricultural pro-
gress, the cheapening Of cotton pro
ductloh, the raising of home sup
pies, immi grafton, mining, and the
many other new ambitions and en-
terprises which have engaged so
much attention since the opening OF
this new era of industrial develops
ment. But concerning the future
OF manufactures, particularly of
cotton, all men of intelligence and
business experience speak with the
assurance of inspired prophecy.
Some of the statistica! grounds
for this hopeful feeling are gwen
below, and are worthy of considers
alton at THE time:
'ln 1860 there were bit l 80 mills.
running go $50 spindfes and 6,713
looms, in the Southern States, out
OF total for the whole Union OF
1901 mills, with g.22s,737 spindles
and lao sig looms A traction over
s. per cent of the spindes were
in the South. The census of 1880
gives a total of 10,921,147 spindles,
Of VIII ch 608,2S6 are in the South
still about s per cent Ia doubling
the mum Der of spindles in these
twenty years, the South barely
maintained its relative proportions
1t employs now 1928 operatives.
against 163 4O5 employed in North
ern mills; that is, for every opera
tive in the South there are nine in
the North. The era OF growth in
manufactures has only just opened
in the South, however. The cen.
sus Of 1890 will greatly disappoint
Il people of this part of the coun-
try ifIt does not show that instead
OF a beggarly 53 per cent of the
manufacturing OF the country the
South has 20 or Is per cent.
1.-The reasons set forth for this
confidence are many and of unmis-
taxable weight. At the outset
every Southern man is sure to
prove to you that it is dead waste
to ship raw cotton to a mill fifteen
hundred miles away when it could
be made into yarns or fabrics much
cheaper in factories distant from
The cotton field only . short half
days journey for mule. There is
force in this reasoning The money
expended upon each bale of cotton
in preparing it for and shipping il
to the distant market, very consid,
erabie sum, which the manufac,
turer must deduct from the price
Of his raw material or add to the
price of his product. Let US look
at $he items. Planters usually reck-
or that bagging and ties cost them
nothing, as they are weighed with
the bale and sell for as much az
they paid for them. This reason.
ing is misleading, for the manufac.
turer reckons begging and ties pre-
cisely as he does any other waste
These two items may be set down
as 81. Then follow ginning and
baling, S.; storage and insurance
10 cents; drayage, Is cents; samp
tings-say two pounds in alI-2(
cents; compressing Is cents; cor,.
mission and brokerage. S.; freight
t. New England and insurance. $5
waste by stealing, careless han
ding. dirt, storms, etc, not less
than $3-in all $14.5O, or almost
exactly the I J cents a pound which
it is usually estimated that the New
England manufacturers pays for hi,
cotton above the price received by
the grower. The aggregate of thes,
charges upon the entire crop i.
something startling, The crop o
1879, according to the census re
turns, was 5,737.257 bales, of which
Mr.. Edward Atkinson's repor
shows that r95, $50 bales We're man
ufactured in the South. Upon tb,
.541 ,468 remaining bales, presum
ably shifted to distant mills, th,
! amount of these charges, at $l4 81