3 o2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



people, who were clad down to 1870 in homespun fabrics, have 

 changed to factory -made goods, in which estimate I am very much 

 more than sustained by my correspondents, that change calls for 

 seven hundred thousand additional spindles at the ratio of one to 

 five, or seven hundred and eighty thousand at the ratio of one to 

 four and a half. 



These statistics, so far as they prove anything, therefore prove 

 that while the spindles of the South have gained eleven hundred 

 thousand since 1870, the demand of the South for cotton fabrics at 

 the average of the country has increased in a ratio of more than 

 double the product of their own increase of spindles ; and I think 

 all our observations tend to confirm these statistics. 



A few sheetings and drills have been exported from the South- 

 ern factories and a few Southern goods have been sold in the West, 

 but at the same time there has been a constantly increasing 

 demand upon the North for medium and fine goods. These South- 

 ern goods which we have heard of from our salesmen were all 

 made in the larger factories, which are well equipped with modern 

 machinery many of them being operated by men who would 

 succeed anywhere but they do not yet constitute a rule, nor must 

 we forget or disregard the personal factor in dealing with this 

 question. It is upon the personal factor, much more than upon 

 proximity to the cotton-field, that the success of the Southern 

 factory will depend. The advantage of position was only meas- 

 ured at a cent a pound four or five years ago. The freight from 

 central Alabama to New England is now less than three quarters 

 of a cent a pound. Very soon it will be down to half a cent ; then 

 what ? The greater part of the Southern factories are, as you 

 observe, too small to be economically worked, averaging but a 

 fraction over five thousand spindles each. So long as these small 

 factories are devoted to supplying Southern neighborhoods and 

 Southern communities with checks, plaids, and heavy brown 

 cottons, for which there is always a demand in that section greater 

 than any other, they will succeed or fail according to the skill and 

 aptitude of the owner or manager. It may have been observed 

 that within the last few weeks there has been an overstock of 

 these peculiarly Southern goods, and an effort has been made to 

 check the production. Some of the Southern sheetings which 

 have lately appeared in Northern markets must, I think, have 

 been sold at less than cost. 



I have referred to the personal factor as the main element in 

 settling this question. In a small factory, wherever it may be, 

 there must be such personal interest or individual ownership as to 

 secure the necessary skill and judgment in the conduct of the 

 work, and there must not be a set of stockholders who like cor- 

 morants swallow their dividends and demand them without regard 



