The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-02-11
Producing Power of Machinery.

Producing Power of Machinery.
The stupendous producing pc wer and
labor-saving qualities of machin cry are
we'll illustrated in the production of cotton
and WOODEN cloth.
At the Atlanta exposition of 1881 there
were five women brought from the noun
tain region of Georgia to spin and weave
course co ton fabric by the use Of hand
cards, spinning wheel and hand loom, pre-
cisely as such cotton cloth was made by far
mers' wives and daughters hundreds and
thousands of years ago.
Two of these Georgia carders, two spin
ners and one weaver could produce only
eight yards of coarse cotton cloth in day
of ten hours. The same number of persons
employed in the modern cotton factory.
by the use of machinery, with much less
labor, produce 800 yards, or 100 times as
much as the Georgia women made in the
same time.
There are 172, 900 persons engaged in the
manufacture of cotton goods in this coun-
try about 100, 900 are employed in making
woven goods. 1t would take l6, 200, 900 per-
sons to make the same number of yards by
means OF hand work.
There were 273, 0OO, 900 yards of cotton
cloth made in the factories of the United
States in 1879, which would amount to ,29l,
AT miles of cotton cloth, which would be
enough to go round the world at the equa-
tor more than 81 times.
In 1880 one Lowell operative produced in
twelve months 1928 pounds of drill, 5
pounds to l6 yards Such cloth sent to China
would clothe 1856 Chinese.
The world produces yearly about 70 O00,-
600 bales of cotton. About half of the
worlds cotton crop is produced in the
United States.
In the United States it takes about Is
pounds of cotton cloth per head-3 pounds
some statisticians say pounds may be put
down as the average consumption all over
the world with its 400, 600 600 inhabitants.
Nearly all the improvements that ever
have been made in agricultural Implements
have been made in the nineteenth CEN
fury. At the beginning of the present CEN
fury the best implements they had were
the Old fashion wooden pillow with a few
pounds of iron clumsily fitted to the beam
and mold board, the sickle, or cradle, for
the grain crop, they had fail for threshing
grain and the scythe for making hay
The old-time pillow is described as made of
wood, iron shod, large, lll-shaped and cum
bersome, drawn by from one to six yoke of
oxen requiring one and often two men TO
hold it, another to ride on the beam to keep
it in the ground, still another to keep it
clear, and the drivers, sometimes four or
six men, never less than two, to pillow an
acre day.
Now we have plows that, with light
soil one man with two horses will plow
handsomely two and a half acres daily.
Then there is long list of cultivators and
harrows, end revolving hoes and numerous
other Implements which prepare and cult
vate the soil better by far than ever before.
nearly doing away with the hoe, one man
doing the work Of several men with old
time tools
The moving machine, with two horses
and a driver, will NOW ten or twelve
acres daily, and the horse rake, two
horses and driver, viii take up twenty
| acres daily.
With the sickle, or reap hook, a man
could reap and bind hardly an acre daily
now, with a harvester and binder, man,
with two good horses. will cut and bind
fifteen to twenty acres daily. And so on
through the whole list of improvements in
farming utensils.
Formerly with hand fail a man would
thresh six to ten bushels of grain in day {;
now threshing machine, two horses and
twoor three men will thresh and clean hun
dreds of bushels daily. On the bonanza
farms in Dakota and California they with a
few teams reap thresh, winnow and bag
hundreds and even thousands Of bushels of
grain daily.