The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-09-28
IN THE SOUTH
TEXTILE MEN OF EUROPE WILL BE
 AMAZED
Pnr-i,.h spiuners Who Will vinit This Section May Be Surprised st The
 Growth of The Indus

tries.
 Baltimore, Sept. T--(SpeciaD- Bearing upon the coming tour of the South by a party of more than a hundred representatives of the textile industry in Europe The Manufacturers Record publishes in this weeks issue number of special articles emphasiz- ing the importance of the South as a grower and q manufacturer of cotton.
 Of the total $2.0Oo, 100000 invested in manufacturing in the South, an in crease of $1,743,o00,000, or at the rate of SIS per cent. since 1880, the capital invested in cotton mills represents about one-eighth, or $2bo,o0O,0O0, an in the rate of 1.090 per cent. In the past five years while the active sptndleage of the world has increased from 112,- O72S96 to 122,SS3,364, or by 10,8l0,46S, equal 9.6 per cent, and that of the United States from 22,2S9,633, to 25,- 924,274, or by 3,6s4.612 equal to 1e5 per cent that of the South has in- creased from 7,oss,ss3 to s.s24,245. or by 2,Ss4,612, equal to 40.6 per cent Nearly eighty per cent of the increase in the number of active spindles in the United States in the past five years has been made in the South, and yet the Southern increase was nearly E. 900, spindles less than the increase in Great Britain.
 Though raising seventy-two per cent of the worlds crop of 1S.5S0,000 bales of cotton the South consumed during the past year only thirteen per cent of the crop and only eighteen per cent of it's own crop of 13.5l0,O00 bales. But one year is as nothing in the his- tory of the spinning of cotton by machinery with its short past of about century and half and it's great trn- | measurable future. The South has, | however. in the past quarter of a cen- | tury clearly marked out the part which it Is to play in that future. In the past ten years the takings of Ameri- 1 can mills have increased from 30.7 per cent of the American crop to some | thing more than thirty-four per cent | of it. and the takings of the Southern mills have advanced from 35.7 per cent of that total takings in this country | to more than forty mine per cent of them. Twice In that period, in 1903 and again in 1906, Southern mills actually took more Southern cotton than did the mills in the rest of the country. Spinning still dominates the l textile industry in the South, but
 whereas there was an. increase In the number of looms in the ten years be- tween 1880 and 1890 from 14,323 to S9,- 231, there was an increase in the next
 
 number has reached 224,04O.
 For the expansion of the industry the natural resources are at hand. | Will the mills want coal? More than 62,O0O square miles of the Souths terri tory Is already known to be underlaid
 with bituminous coal that being about five times the coal area of Great
 Britain and twenty-five per cent great
 CT than the coal area of the whole Of Europe. Is petroleum to be applied
 to power production in the textile in-
 dustry? Five Southern States, four of
 them cotton manufacturers. produced last year between 30,00O.000 and 40,- 900, 900 barrels of petroleum. and this
 year Texas and Louisiana alone will 1 produce at least 15,000.000 barrels. Is
 water-power to be controlled and con-
 verted for electrical purposes? In the
 Appalachian section of the South alone
 are waterpowers from which 1t is es-
 timated that 2.S92,000 horse power could be economically developed. and there is probably an equal amount
 developable in the rest of the South. Here is a potentiality of more than 5000. .00O horsepower and its stgniti- canoe may be realized in the light or the present use of about 35O.OOO horse power only by Southern cotton mills. About $50,000.OO is now being spent 1 upon the beginning of the development of this vast source of power Tor the South.
 Richness of power resources is | equalled by the vastness of the possi- l biIities in material for the textile in- dustry. Of the total SO7.ooo square
 miles of area of the South less than
 10000 square miles Is occupied by lands upon which cotton Is grown and | of such lands hardly one-half is de- voted to cotton raising If their whole | area was so used the/ South, upon its l present average basis of production | and without the least improvement in seed selection, breeding and the use f of fertilizers. would raise crop of | 2s 500 900 bales. But the land already | occupled by cotton farms Is not half of the area which could be so used, l and. therefore, in nature, 1t Is quite | nossfble for the South to raise a crop of 60, 100000 or 70.000,000 bales 1 year.
 The American cotton crop of the | season ended August 31 was 2,SO60OO l bales more than the previous crop, that of India 100000 bales more. that of Egypt 125, 5,OO0 bales more. and that of the Asfatic provinces of Russia 150,- | OO0 bales more. The increased world consumption of cotton was more than 5s4,0O0 bales. Consideration of the possibilities of cotton growing in other | countries than the United States and
 
 some European spinners as to the
 ability of the South to furnish in the future an adequate supply of cotton to. meet the increasing requirements of European and American spindles, should not lose sight of the fact of the potentialitles of the South as the natural centre for expansion in cot ton growing. Southern cotton planters
 of the present and the next genera
 ton, and probably for several more
 generations in the future, need feel
 no apprehension in regard to the com
 petition from new fields of cotton pro-
 ductton about which so much has been
 said and from which so little cotton
 has been received. Careful and quail
 flied students arc thoroughly convinced
 of the ability of the Southern States to readily meet the fullest require
 ments of the world for American cot
 ton. as they are of the utter futility of
 the attempts to grow cotton in the new