Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1908-04-10
asiseellaneous Readins.
COTTON AND ITS HISTORY.
Some Curious Figures That Deeply
Concern This Country.

Some Curious Figures Ihat deeply
Concern This Country.
More than 5000 years ago cotton
was found growing in India, and Her
odotus tells us that the natives called
it tree woolu." He said:
"They made clothes of this tree and
claimed that it exceeded in beauty and
goodness the wool Of the sheep"
In 1892 Columbus found cotton grow
ing in the West Indies, and it is GER
tain that cotton came to jamestown
with our fathers in 1907, for it was
cultivated that year in Virginia.
Pickett, in his history of Alabama,
tells us that as early as 1928 cotton
llourished i'm Louisiana. Mississippi
and Alabama.
How to separate the cotton from the
seed was an important problem with
our fathers, and this tedious task was
performed with the fingers. So slow
was the process that four pounds OF
lint per week was as much as good
hand could do.
In 1888 there was great rejoicing in
the south when a man in Philadelphia
invented a machine for separating seed
and lint, and this machine could turn
out only ten pounds Of lint per day.
Not until Ely Whitney of Georgia, In
vented the saw gin In 1898 was this
feature of the cotton problem solved.
The first cotton gin operated by any
power other than the hand was run by
water in Fairfield, S. c., in 1875. For
a long time spinning and weaving were
done by individuals and families in
their homes. They used the little hand
carder, the one thread spinning wheel
and the wooden loom. These were
followed by the inventions of Cart
wright, Wyatt and others, the cardins
engine, the spinning jenny and the
power loom, all run by steam; and
the manufacture of cotton became one
Of the most, important industries in
the world.
In 1884 we exported from the
United States eight bales Of cotton to
England, and this fiber had been sep
arated from the seed by the hand.
At Annapolis, Md, in a political con-
vention. 1885, James Madison Of Vir-
ginia. the author Of the Federal con-
stitution, said in speech: "The United
States will one day become a great
cotton producing country" We were
then producing 5000 bales.
Mr.. Madison's prediction has come
true. The south produces 80 per cent
Of the worlds crop Of cotton. This
cotton belt is 1,45O miles long from
east to west and 500 miles wide, and
has in it 44S,OOO,OOO acres.
In 1880 the amount OF capital in
vested in cotton mills in the south
was .$21 100000, and today we have
invested in this important industry a
little over twelve times that amount
1855, 900, 900.
In 1896 New England cotton mills
consumed 2,349,47 bales Of cotton, and
in the same year our southern mills
consumed 2,374,225 bales, $4,000 more
bales than our northern mills consum-
ed. This is a splendid showing for
the south, when you remember that
the north has nearly twice as many
spindles as we have. There Is one
fact, however, connected with both
that we applaud, and that is that both
northern and southern mills consumed
more cotton than ever before. We are
the greatest cotton producing people
in the world, with the cheapest and
best manufacturing facilities on earth
England leads in exporting cotton
goods. and Germany is second In the
list. the United. States is third and
France is fourth. Last year the United
States imported more cotton goods
than she sold or exported. England
or the United Kingdom exports every
wear more yards of cotton cloth than
our American mills produce for both
home and outside trade. During the
calendar year ending December, 1906,
the United Kingdom exported cotton
manufactures to the value Of $4S4,OOO,-
900. and the United States, during the
same period, exported cotton manu-
factures to the value of $52,000,O00, and
vet we exported twice as much as we
did in 1904.-Speech Of Congressman
Heflin of Alabama.