Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-02-19
ON CHANGE.
Spot Cotton Unchanged, Futures We're
from Two to Four Points Higher.
Wheat Opened Unsettled, Fluctuated Widely
and Closed Lower-Cofee and Wool
Markets We're Unchanged.
Daily REVIEW.
OFFIcE OF TIE GAZETTE.

The week opened up with clear, crisp
weather and good business in ali branches
of trade. The healthy condition of bust
ness North and East has had its effect
here, and quotations remain firm at the
figures given in last report.
In cotton the market is stronger than
last week. Best grades in this market
having advanced "a cent. Receipts to-
day have been only thirty bales by wagon
Country produce is i'll good demand,
with eggs, butter and poultry slightly ad-
vanced. Receipts are good.
Wheat is stiff at prices last quoted in
this market. The following are the quo
tations to-day.
The following Is from the st. Louis
Age of Steel: 1.-The iron trade of the
country hardly realizes the force and
meaning of the statistics OF pigiron pro-
duction at the South. It is granted of
hand that that section is making consId-
cradle progress in the manufacture of
crude iron, because it is reasonable
to suppose that it should, but the matter
is not given the serious attention its i'm
poTtance really demands In truth,
there is disposition in some quarters to
treat it with more or less gooi-natured
levity-to make liberal allowance for
exaggeration when the story of the
South IS wonderful progress as an iron
producer is told. In 1887 the nine
Southern states advanced their blast
furnace output by little more than per
cent, whereas the total OUTPUT Of the
United States has increased the enormous
amount of 7 ,lS7 ,206 net tons from &c.,
32S in 1886. The comparison it will be
seen was not favorable to the South,
and by the country at large was accepted
as proof positive that the iron resources
of that section have been overrated by
Northern visitors This conclusion was
wrong, for since then the South has rap
idly advanced in the iron industry.
The conditions then prevailing have
changed, however, and most radically.
The South has not only acquired the
facilities since then to show what she can
do in the way of making iron, but has
surprised the whole world by the
magnitude of her output the past
year. Though the rest of the country
made somewhat less iron IN 1888, and the
whole country only IL per cent more
that year than in the preceding twelve
months the nine Southern states added to
their production by almost % per cent,
increasing the same to 1872 1858 net tons.
This advance appears all the more re-
markable when it is considered that the
tendency of the iron trade was and still is
toward depression, and furthermore,
that the increase was an advance on pre-
vious heavy outputs. For in
stance, while Southern pro-
duction gained only about per cent from
the close of 1886 to the close of 1887, the
record for the former year showed an in
crease over 1885 of no less than % per
cent. in output. Hence, taking the
three years since 1885 together for pur-
poses of an annual average, it will be no.
ticed that the rate of growth in the out
put of Southern iron has been very high,
and comparing the figures of 1888 with
those of 1885, it will be found that the
South has made the astonishing advance
of nearly So per cent. in pg-iron pro-
duction.