THE FUTURE OF OUR COTTON MANUFACTURE. 299 



Stream and spreading it over the fertile cotton-fields of the 

 United States, has fixed our supremacy in cotton production and 

 probably in the cotton manufacture of the future, until Egypt is 

 more fully redeemed from barbarism, or until the lands bordering 

 upon the Paraguay and Parana Rivers in South America are 

 more fully occupied by a dense and industrious population. 



But perhaps the seat of the cotton manufacture of the future 

 may not be wholly where the cotton grows. Cotton is a sun- 

 plant. It thrives best and yields the largest product in the hot, 

 dry years when the dryness does not become a drought. The 

 very characteristics of climate which promote the production 

 of the fiber are to some extent inconsistent both with spin- 

 ning and weaving, which call for a cool, moist atmosphere. 

 The variety of Dacca muslin so fine as to have been called the 

 " woven wind " is spun and woven only in the early morning by 

 weavers who sit upon the ground under the trees where the hu- 

 midity of the air is greatest. I believe they even dig a hole in the 

 ground, in which they sit, so as to bring the web in front of them 

 close to the ground. 



This brings us to the question of prime interest to all of us. 

 Will that Southern cotton land also become the principal site of 

 the cotton manufacture of the United States ? Upon this ques- 

 tion I will first submit the facts, and I will then give the conclu- 

 sions which I have myself derived from them. 



The number of spinning and weaving mills in the Southern 

 States which I have named, both before the war and subsequently 

 down to 1870, was not sufficient to be considered a factor of any 

 considerable importance. In 1860 the number of Southern spindles 

 was about five per cent of the total number of spindles of the 

 country. They were in by far the greatest proportion devoted to 

 spinning coarse yarns to be woven upon hand looms and con- 

 verted into Osnaburgs or into jeans, the latter mostly of the 

 so-called " butternut variety " ; goods dyed with the butternut 

 dye, which color gave the name to the Confederate uniforms. 



There were a few considerable and successful mills devoted 

 to both spinning and weaving ; notably at Columbus, under the 

 able supervision of William H. Young and John Hill; other 

 mills at Augusta, the Graniteville Mill, and a very few others. 



In 1870 the number of Southern spindles was nearly three 

 hundred and twenty-eight thousand, gradually and slowly in- 

 creasing, down to 1880, to five hundred and forty-two thousand. 

 In this period looms were being added to many of the spinning- 

 mills, and the change was going on from the homespun to the 

 factory-made goods. It is only since 1880 that the additions have 

 been made to the spindles of the South which have attracted so 

 much attention. 



