The Union times. [volume] (Union, S.C.) 1894-1918, 1895-10-18
SOUTHERN PROGRESS.
A Contract of tho ssOld South" With
the "New." Her Industrial Future
Very Bright,

4
the ssNew." Her Industrial Future
Very Bright.
''The South" is very large ey.
preston, and progress in the South in
dicates O movement distributed over
many states not ut all alike, either in
natural advantages or lately acquired
enterprise. Some parts of the South
are still very backward, while others
have made advances of late years which
it would be difficult to find excelled in
any other section Of tho country. Peo-
pie have become familiar with the
rapidly increasing production of the
great agricultural staple of the South.
Between 1880 and 1895 the crop kent
within cocoon bales, by 1886 it was
G,500, 900 bales, and by 1889 close on
to 1000, 900. The maximum was
thought to have been reached when the
crop of 1890 exceeded 1900, 900 bales,
but that was thrown into the shade
when the extraordinary crop of last
year showed II total of nearly 9, 800, GOO
bales. Tho present years crop will
be very far short of this in quantity,
though thanks 10 the advanced price,
its value may be as great. In the
natural order of things, the crop of
1894 will not stand long without u
rival. When Texas grows more cotton
than all the South did before the war
and she is still at the beginning Of her
agricultural development, the cotton
producing possibilities Of the S. 18th
are very far from being exhausted.
Side by side with The growth of what
used to be the only source of Southern
wealth there has been growing up a
more diversified agriculture and the
beginning of wide range of manu-.
fucturos 1t is characteristic of the
new spirit Of the South that the cotton
seed oil industry is the growth of the
period since the war. A product
which was reckoned useless in 1860
figured in 1890 as having value, after
treatment in the mills, of S25, S34, ,OOO,
and is today the basis ofan investment
in building and machinery of $50, ,OOO,-
900. In 1880 the whole South pro-
duccd only 143, 100000 bushels O.
grain. last year the yield was 600, 900,
600. The number CT tons Of coal
mined in 1880 was but little over
5000, 900, while 1891 it was 10000
00O The output of pig iron III the
South in 1880 was 1877 800 tons, and
in 1894 1, $500 tons. The1 value of
the product of the sawed and planed
lumber, which in 1880 was SAG, 938, 900,
had risenin 1894 to S114, TAG, ,674. The
true value of Southern property ac-
cording to the census returns of 1880,
was $7,941 ,000,000; last year it was
estimated at 81 per cent more.
There are to-day some $500, 900, 900
invested in manufacturing enterprises
in the South, with an estimated annual
value of product of $1,000, 900, 900.
Of the former, about S108, 200, 900 is
invested in cotton mills, or five times
as much as in 1880, and some 500, ,OOO,-
900 is invested in lumber mills. A
recent writer or the South remarked
that with the possession of all the raw
materials entering into manufactures,
with cheap labor and cost of living, the
industrial future of tho South should
be of the brightest. But the fact that
these resources remained SO long un.
developed and are now coming SO fully
into evidence argues change in the
spirit of the people moro significant
than the inexhaustiblc bounty of
nature. No one at all familiar with
the old South can fail to be struck with
the resolution with which the men,
whom the war left penniless, set them
selves to repair their wasted fortunes.
While there were many that succumb.
ed to the struggle, as we'll as many
that surmounted it, they have, as n
rule, left there some m uch better fit
ted for the competition of modern life
than they were themselves. The rapid
accelerstion Of Southern progress may
be due partly to an infusion Of North.
ern energy, but it is mainly the work
Of Southerners who were too young to
know anything of the war or its pas
sions, or who were born after its close.
In the hands of this generation the
South has taken its first great stride Of
real progress.
CONDITION OE THE CROPS