THE FUTURE OF OUR COTTON MANUFACTURE. 301 



According to the "Financial Chronicle," there were in the 

 Southern States named, in the cotton year 1888-89, two hundred 

 and fifty-nine factories, averaging a little over five thousand 

 spindles each, giving a total number of one million three hundred 

 and forty-four thousand five hundred and seventy-six spindles 

 in operation, with thirty-one thousand four hundred and thirty- 

 five looms. The number of yarn spun was a fraction under No. 

 14 a gain in the fineness of the yarn, since my computation of 

 1880, of one number only. 



If we deduct the few large mills, the average of the greater 

 number is about four thousand spindles, ranging from one to six 

 or seven thousand. The Southern consumption of cotton had 

 increased from one hundred and eighty-eight thousand seven 

 hundred and forty-eight bales in 1879-80 to four hundred and 

 eighty-six thousand six hundred and three bales in the last cotton 

 year. In addition to the spindles in operation, a few have been 

 added, and it is estimated by the " Financial Chronicle " that, on 

 the 1st of September of the present year, there were one million 

 four hundred and fifty thousand spindles in the Southern States, 

 of which about one million are in the States of North and South 

 Carolina and Georgia. The list given in the Baltimore " Manu- 

 facturers' Record " gives a greater number, but many mills in that 

 list are only projected. I therefore adhere to the carefully pre- 

 pared statistics of the " Financial Chronicle." 



It is on the Piedmont plateau that you are to look for competi- 

 tion if anywhere in the Southern country. The mills will be 

 built upon the foot-hills of the Appalachian chain ; in the uplands 

 rather than upon the lowlands of the South. On the foregoing- 

 statement there has therefore been a gain in the twenty years 

 that have elapsed since 1869 in Southern spindles, mainly in the 

 last ten years, of about eleven hundred thousand spindles ; cer- 

 tainly very rapid progress. But now let us look at the other side. 



The gain in the population of these same States since 1870, on 

 the basis of an estimate of our present population made by the 

 Actuary of the Treasury Department, has been six million six 

 hundred thousand. At the ratio of five persons to a spindle this 

 absolute increase in the population of these same Southern States 

 has called for the product of one million three hundred and 

 twenty thousand spindles, or two hundred and twenty thousand 

 in excess of the actual gain in the Southern factories. At the ratio 

 of four and a half persons to a spindle, which is the present aver- 

 age, the gain in the population in these States requires the prod- 

 uct of fourteen hundred and sixty thousand spindles. In these 

 computations no cognizance is taken of the displacement of home- 

 spun fabrics. 



If my computation is correct, that three and a half million 



