The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-10

lyears ago the Secretary of the Treas lury submittsd to Congress the nrs,
 ofacial report on cotton manufactur- ling. This showed that there were then 2G9 cotton manufacturing es-
 tabiishments scattered through eigh- teen states and territories. and that
 these cperated s7,oeo spindies. The majority of the cloth then used was
 of home manufacture, the homes put
 ting out sixteen and half million yards year against . possible mil-
 lion and . halt yards of factory-made
 cotton goods The motive power. was
 chisfiy water. though many of the sauthern milis and few of the north- ern ones. used animal power.
 | Today the number of cotton-ustnE
 manufnctortes is given as i.pai. and
 the active number of spindles as over ! twenty -saven and a half million. With the exception of remote noun tain regions and far rural communi- ties of the South. there 10 practically no home spinning and weaving done now and the amount of cotton cloth made in the home is q negligible yards of cotton goods are exported
 annually. to say nothing of the fsmount used within the States. Be-
 sides the amount made by its own factories for home use, the United States imported last year, manufac- tured cotton goods to the value of
 over ees,e00.o .ooo, fhe most of which
 had been made from American cotton shipped abroad and returned in the
 shape of faces. emoroideries and line cloth.
 Eighty per cent of the worlds cot
 ton is grown in the southern states | of the United States. practically four teen furnishing the product. The I other 20 per cent is grown in the Orient. fn India and South America. FoodstufEs vary to suit the needs of
 the various peoples of the world, but in the matter cf clothing. cotton will
 always be pre-eminent. The natural
 resources Of country may be dep ieted in few years, in a century. at
 most, China 10 an ever present re- I hinder of the fate Of nation that l will destroy It's forests and make . desert of its valleys and its once fer tile fields. Minerals may some day be
 exhausted. Forests may be perman-
 entity destroyea- Cotton is . perman- I entI product. II is said that the land
 on which cotton is grown is practic- ally inexhausttbie. that the rich alin- | vial lands of the Mississippi Valley. where crops have been grown for lyears without rotation. are as good
 as they were ct frst. On the up-
 lands the tillege of a century has be-
 sin to tell on the lan6. for improved
 mnehienFy is not in reach of the small farmer, he and has not yet ! learned the value of fertilizer and of building up the soils. He has too hard la struggle with nature for the exia- tenoa Of himself and hia family.
 The majority of the cotton in Afs- N aa Nnrn InmA Inc small farmer. the ahare~cropper, the renter. It Co e peculiar satire on Ann erican industry that the men who pfo- | luce the most stable and the richest product oS the nation are, as rule, it's poorest. its most handicapped. 1t most uneniightcned citizens. Each lSarmer who rents c piece of land from
 some more affiuent person has . hard row 60. hoe. His land win probably produce hais or a quarter of bale ! to 4he acre in some of the upiandn, where humble bee cotton is more no- sicsabie than the better kind. 0ener- ally half of this cotton must so to Ishs landlord Another generous Iarzsoun4 must 20 for provisions. and that 1aAw0a vary iitsie for the care of his stock, for the clothtng and proper care ef his family. The small farmer has many dcctcr's bills, as 2 2 E4tEr ENE hH8rW0sY 4NAAAt9NAVA AtaVH4 4 " the small cotton grower is that ae- 1 foraed by nature. Typhoid and mala- rgA are often very close ko his homo. | whether the Rresldent's farm commis- sion will De able to reach and im- prove these conditions remains to be seen. The best way to reach them seems to be in putting more stable prices on the cotton, aboiishing the
 iniddieman. and allowing the farmer
 to see more immediate returns For bis long year.s work.
 It has been estab biished by a student
 Of the subject that # all the worlds iinhabitanta should become ciyiltsed and wear clothes after the fashion that civilization decreee. tt would in- | crease the t3,ooo.o0o bales raised last year in the United States to 42,0O0,- 900 bales of 500 pounds each. That would mean an increase 0e the cotton
 crop of America practically three | fold, and ik is said by those who have made { study Of the subject, that the cotton lands of the South are not
 oniy capable of snataining this in- ereMee. but even greater one if the need arose, for the land can be built up and made more productive through the principles of scientific agricul- ture.
 h l7s4 America shippsd eight bagB of cotton into Iivefpools and these | were promptly on the grounds that America could not possibly produce so muce cotton in one year. In the last fiscal year nearly t,000,000 bales
 4S per cent of the exported crop of 1 the United States. went Into the United Kingdom, and there was no question then in the mind of the I Briton as to whether America could
 raise so much in year. He knows that thia is a little over third of Che amount annually produced in Am erica, and that 1t is less than one tenth or what the southetns states could produce under ideal conditions i Daniel ]. guliy, writing recently in | a popular magazine, declared that the waste in planting. culttvating, ginn- i Ing, handling and marketing cotton costa the south tioe,O0o.Oo0 annually. what better argument than this can | he offered for notwithstanding the me- l thods In cotton planting and cotton I u@faxeking9 The remoteness of many | og the small cotton farms in that land I oe rnagniflcsnt distances below Ma" | son ana Dixon's line, is responsible l for she slow arrival of the improve I men4s known to the farmer who Is ! nearer social centcrs and In closer i contact with the national and state | depArtments of agriculture. There | are many hundreds of these small l farmers who still uso the blow with l wooden stock, who have rarely seen \ two mules put fo one blow, or who