Birmingham age-herald., 1895-02-21
THE CONVERSION OF COTTON.

Each yard of unbleached cotton goods retaied in Birmingham at cents contains 1A cents of cotton sold in bales from wag- ons on the street; that is, each pound of baled cotton, suta ble for that class of tex tiles is good for a return of three yards of the mill product.
 We may take the value of the cotton bale on the farmers wagon at the market door as the basis of the true estimate of possi- ble cotton production at profit. The con- tents of the bale have already passed through the first stage of legitimate mill. ing, and in that fact lies it's marketable property. Cotton in the seed cannot be marketed. With this fact begin the charges upon botk the farmer, who pro- duces, and the miner, who consumes the cotton. The farmer, with the bulk of seed cotton on hand, begins, as industry now exists, the milling process at the toll gin. The vital problem to him is to stop the cost to him of the milling process as near his farm as possible. Every cost is charged back to him. Every handling of his cotton in bales is an employment of wage labor at his expense all the way through, up to the weekly pay of the clerk who sells the dry goods into which it has been converted.
 The one pound of cotton baled is sold from the wagon at cents. The seller goes to the merchant and pays him 15 cents to get the pound back again in the form of three yards of textile for a shirt. Costs on 5.cent cotton are accounted for about as fol- lows: Twenty per cent freight to New England, 2h per cent commission, sampling, ordinary loss in handling, 27h per cent return freight on the mill product, rents at Birmingham, clerk hire and profit, making 50 per cent direct charges .without any consideration of net profit at the mill. The mill profit Is, of course, necessary addition to the items of cost saddled upon the producer. Before he gets his money for his cotton he pays the charges of the first stage of milling, termed familiarly ginning. Thereafter he pays S5, one- fifth of the value of tho bale, freight on the bale, commissions and the other long roll of charges just enumerated.
 farmer of Nebraska, for example, will haul at one load to the mill or to the ship ping point sixty bushels of wheat, weigh ing 3600 pounds, worth say S60. The farmer of Alabama will haul with one wagon and team $500 pounds of seed cot ton to the cotton mill or the shipping point, worth, at 10 cents for baled cotton, s100 for the lint only. In the load of seed cot ton repose, in the raw form of seed, a quantity of oil for culinary uses, food for cattle and land fertilizer, all of imme. diate practical or commercial value, and this value which must be added to the $100 lint.
 If wheat can be transported when worth $1 lo a mill or shipping point, cotton in the seed can be more successfully trans- a 1hia cnl tion is given upon an assumed normal basis of selling prices, prices consistent with general prosperity.
 The cotton mill as growth from the gin, is the industrial advance inevitably ahead of the South. The modern mill will include the gin. Seed cotton delivered at mill would be sepaI ated by a process calculated to avoid cutting the fibre; the fibre would not be broken by the force of compression into bales. Better textiles would be one result.
 If it be practicable that cotton producer may retain possession of his crop after it has passed through the first stage of mill ing, known as ginning, offering it to the market in bales of lint on his own account, why could he not contract with mill to manufacture the crop-the Int into textiles auu tuo bCCo Anbo OAAS Sdho auu auhb-Ic- tain possession of the output and market the whole on his own account7 If he should order unbleached goods he would get 15 cents in goods instead of cents, as at present, in cash for pound of lint. If he should order laces or other goods where pound of lint is multiplied ten or fifty times in value he would only consult the market. There would be far more active market for textiles if the goods were dis tributed where manufactured than there can be when the mills are concentrated in one corner of an immense area, populated by tens of millions of consumers.
 NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN IRONs.
 The Iron Age is published in New York and shows a tendency to favor Northern iron. It's last issue contains an editorial on the antagonism between Northern and Southern irons. The first portion of the article is fair, just and truthful. It says tbe aptagonism between Northern and Southern irons is more apparent than real. Each has its appropriate sphere, in which its right to eminent domain should be recognized. Southern soft irons are in continued favor in Northernmost markets. The mixture is preferred by numerous foundrymen. So far, so good. But the Iron Age now begins to show its par tiality for the North. The writer is evil