Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-11-23
ITS PRACTICAL IMPORTANCE.
The New South and the Centennial Cot
ton Exposition of 1884.
Ne30 York Herdld.

ton Exposition of 1884.
Ne1o York Herazd.
We print a letter from Mr.. Morehead,
the President of the American Cotton
Planters Association, sketching the assO-
ciatiOn's plan for ''WOrld's Cotton Cen
tennial Exposition" to be held under its
auspices in some city of the United States
during the year 1884. The magnificent
success which crowned the exhibition in
Atlanta last year, the crowds which at
tended it from all parts of the country, the
expansion of the display far beyond its
original design, the affectionate intercourse
and acquaintance it promoted between in
habitants of States remote from one an
other, the information it diffused concern
ing the manufacturing and commercial as
well as the agricultural capabilities of the
Southern States, the vast investments of
Northern capital it attracted thither, the
inducements it held out for immigration
from the North and from foreign lands.
and the demonstration it afforded of the
vigOr of the New South, (which is as a
bridegroom coming out of his chamber
and rejOiceth as a strong man to run a
race"-these characteristics combined to
make the occasion one of the most inter-
esting and memorable in the history of
our country. 1t was the conclusive testi-
mOny of the South to a glad acceptance
labor is elevated to the seat of honor. 1t
was the heartfelt testimony of the North
to glad partnership in this era-to the
eager desire of the North to impart to
the South the accumulated blessings of a
century of such civilization its manifold
inventions of agricultural and mechanical
machinery, its improvements in the meth
DDS of lOcOmOtiOn, its stores of scientific
knowledge bearing on the habits and
wants of free and skilled labor, its usages
fitted by experience to an order of society
old here, new there. In writing the his
tory of the American Revolution of the
nineteenth century the Atlanta EXhibi-
tion will be recorded as the closing scene
of the drama which began with the first
ordinance of secession. "And he that sat
upon the throne said, Behold, make all
things new"
1t is not possible to invest the projected
exhibition of 1884 with the sentimental,
pathetic interest which pertained to the
exhibition in Atlanta; but in its practical
interest and Importance, aside from senti-
ment, it may be made to surpass its pre-
decessOr. Cotton still is king of the mate
rial products of the United States as much
as ever it was-nOt in the aggregate value
of the crop, for in that the hay crop sur
passes it; nor in the value of our exports
of it, for in that, Of late years, it has been
surpassed by breadstuffs, but in the
steadiness of the increase of its uses, the
steadiness also of its increased prOduc-
tiOn to respond to those uses, and the
steadiness, further, of its service to
balance international eXchanges-a SER
vice for which our reliance ON exports of
grain and meal is f1uctuating and inter-
mittent. The United States lead all the
world in the amount of their cotton crop,
and yet not One-twentieth of the land
available for the profitable cultivation Of
cotton in the United States is improved
for the purpose. During the recent Con-
gressi0nal debates concerning internal
improvements in the Mississippi valley
it was alleged, without contradiction, that
the bottom lands along that river and
its lower tributaries which could be
redeemed for agriculture by a competent
system of levees would alone be capable of
raising ten times the present cotton crop
of the whole country. The fears enter
tanned by some anxious souls during the
civil war that the change of the tenure of
labor would arrest the progress of this
crop have been utterly dispelled. After
an inevitably brief shrinkage incident to
the social disturbances of the war, and
common to all the industries of the South,
it resumed the normal rate of increase
established in the decades before the war,
and the cultivation is pursued with as
great diligence and with more intelligence.
Manufactures also have reinforced agri-
culture. Cotton mills have been
built among the cotton fields, and
their profits, greatly exceeding those of
the New England mills, according to the
recent statistics, confirm the wisdom of
their location. The cotton seed, once
deemed waste, has become as valuable as
equal quantities in weight of the cotton
wool by the new uses to which il has been
applied. The Southern streams have been
damned for power, the Southern coal
seams are opened the Southern iron ore
beds are mined. All over the South, from
Georgia to Texas, industry is becoming
diversified, the signs of a profitable rivalry
with the complicated civilization Of the
North are multiplying, and the community
is becoming self-sustaining.
The exhibition projected for 1884 cannot
fail to give a great impetus to this diver
sity and to open new avenues for the
profitable investment of capital and em-
ployment Of labor throughout the South,
not in regard to cotton alone but to all
the products, of manufactures as well as
of agriculture, which the forests, soil,
climate and mineral resources of the
South are adapted to contribute to the
common wealth. The interval probably
is long enough for the successful Organi-
ZatiOn Of the exhibition; but if il
is not it may be discreet to post
pOne the time till 1885. 1t
is better that such an enterprise sho.d
not be attempted than that it should be
unsuccessful for want of thorough organi-
cation. The anniversary occasion of 1884,
on which Mr.. MOrehead comments, is of
small importance. The valuable signif-
canoe of a centennial celebration will ap-
ply to almost any time within the four
decades, 1S60-1900. Hargreayes invented
the spinning jenny in 1864; Arkwright
patented his method of spinning by rollers
and erected his first spinning frame in
1863; Wood patented his carding plan in
1776; Compton invented the mule jenny
in 1889; Watt adapted the steam engine
to spinning cotton in 1888; Bell invented
cylinder printing and Cartwright invented
his power loom in 1875; ArkWright's pat
ents were ser aside and his inventions
made free to the public in the same year:
Madison prophesied that ''the United
States would one day become a great cot
ton producing country in the Annapolis
Convention of 1876; the first cotton factory
in the United States was built at Beverly.
in Massachusetts, in 1877 and was visited
by Washington i'll 1888; and Eli Whitney.
of Massachusetts, while a teacher in Gen,
Nathaniel Greene's family in Georgia. in
vented the saw gin in 1893.