The Austin weekly statesman. (Austin, Tex.) 1883-1898, 1890-11-27

| Az DdHQleJ Ill DdlIllllOIe ldSO "O0h
r. H. Edmonds, the editor OF the
Manufacturers Record, delivered an
address, from which the following are
most interesting extracts. They are
food for thought and should be a goad
for the great section so much praised
The South practically holds the
monopoly of the worlds cotton pro-
duction. Its cotton crop this year,
including the value of the seed, will
aggregate nearly $500,OO0,OO0, while
an equal amount will be represented
by its other agricultural products, OF
total of 81 ,000,000,O00, an increase
of $4OO,00O,O00 over the value
of its agricultural products in
1880. Cotton is the most remarkable
agricultural staple of the world,
and its production saved the South
from hopeless bankruptcy after the
war. Since 1865 the South has re-
ceived over $500 100000 for its cot
ton. Hon. Edward Atkinson once
said that if New England could raise
cotton it would grow rich on the seed
alone. Up to five years ago the sew
eral hundred million dollars annually
drawn from the North and Europe to
the South to pay for cotton was i'm
mediately sent back to the North and
West for foodstuffs, and for every
manufactured article needed in the
South, from a pin to a locomotive.
This is now rapidly changing. The
South is largely manufacturing
its own goods and raising its own food
stuffs, and thus partly retaining at
home the hundreds of millions that
formerly went North. 1t is, moreover,
annually shipping North several mil
lions of dollars worth of pig ircn, cot
ton goods, lumber, early fruits and
vegetables. These advantages alone
would place the South on an equality
with the best of the agricultural re-
gions of the West. But these advan-
tages, groat as they are for the crea-
ton of wealth and the development of
permanent prosperity, are only
part of the foundation on which the
wonderful activity that now thrills the
South is based.
X X X
The great mineral belt which ex-
tends from West Virgin ia to Northern
Alabama, covering upwards of 100000
square miles of country in the central
portion of the Southern States, east OF
the Mississippi liver, Is, SO far as the
variety and abundance of its natural
wealth is concerned, by far the most
remarkable portion of North America,
if not of the world. Roughly speak
ing, it is 700 miles long by $50
miles wide. 1t can he truthfully
said that this region contains
fifteen times as much coal, accessible
to economical mining, as can be found
in any contiguous field of like area in
the world, and that it contains forty
times as much coal as the coal fields
of England had in them before pick
had been struck in the ground. This
coal field area is heavily timbered with
virgin forests of the largest growth
ar most valuable kinds of our North
American woods. This region is
now acknowledged by all ex-
perts to be the richest iron
ore district in the world. In addition
to its vast wealth of coal and
iron, it possesses the supreme advant-
ages of having these materials in
closer proximity and more easily
mined than elsewhere. Instead of
having to transport its ore 1000 miles,
as many northern furnaces do, and
its coke 600 to 900 miles, as western
furnaces are compelled to do, it has
ivs ore, coal and limestone within a
few miles of its furnaces. 1t can
manufacture iron and ship it tc
Pennsylvania markets and still sell il
J at a profit for less than the actl q
cost of production to many furnaces
in that state. But so rapidly is the
demand for iron increasing that the
productive capacity of Pennsylvania
furnaces, as well as of all the new fur
| naces which the south can luild, viii
be taxed to keep pace with it.
BIT the record of the last decade
shows with what tireless energy tn
south has been working. Since 1881
3 the south has doubled its railroad
mileage, and now has 10000 miles il
operation against 10000 ten year
ago, and it is now building more new
mileage than all other sections of tn,
country combined. In these ter
3 years it has spent upward of $500.
| COZ, 900 in building new railroads an,
improving old ones. 1t has increased
the value of its taxable property owe
81 500, 100000. In 1880 the soutl
b. mined 100000 tons of coal. II
r 1890 it will put oct abou
, 22,000,000 tons. The 100000 tons @
pig iron produced in 1880 has grow
to 100000 tons this year. Its cot
ton mills have increased from 100 wit
! 100000 spindles to $50 with owe
) 1000, 900 spindles; its cotton seed OF
mills from 40 with capital OF 50, 500
600 to 2l5 with capitol of $4,000,
600. In all other lines Of manufac.
turing the same wonderful growth ha