316 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



rather than a common print, they will have them and they can 

 now well afford to pay for them. 



I was under the impression until I took up this subject that 

 the North had a positive advantage in pure water for bleaching 

 and finishing, for the reason that all the rivers south of the lower 

 margin of the glacial drift, which ended at the mouth of the Del- 

 aware River, are muddy or turbid during a large part of the year, 

 and there are no ponds or lakes of clear water; hardly any of any 

 kind in the cotton States. My correspondence with Mr. John 

 Hill has disposed of this superficial doubt by calling my atten- 

 tion to the facility with which very pure and very soft water may 

 be derived either from abundant springs or from artesian wells. 

 There is no point to be made against the South on bleaching and 

 coloring. 



Again, so long as the supply of native operatives suffices, there 

 may be a great field hardly yet occupied, in the production of 

 coarse rather than of fine cotton fabrics, without trenching or 

 taking away from us any part of the work which we can do 

 in the best way. I think our Southern friends may develop a 

 very important branch of textile industry in spinning and weav- 

 ing below No. 20. 



It will be observed that this whole problem turns upon an aver- 

 age advantage claimed by the South over the North of about one 

 cent a pound in the price of cotton. This present advantage, 

 whatever it may be, will be reduced whenever the volume of 

 Southern railway traffic becomes greater and freight charges are 

 cut down ; but it may always be a considerable point on heavy 

 goods. There is not, however, the full difference of the freight 

 between the North and the South. Very few mills can supply 

 themselves with cotton, even in the South, from the immediate 

 neighborhood ; and, when cotton must be baled and put upon cars 

 for transportation, the local rates are apt to be quite heavy for 

 short distances. 



The advantages claimed by the South on account of the longer 

 hours of work can not be admitted. In the first place, they 

 will soon be shortened, either from choice or necessity ; and, in 

 the second place, I doubt if any very skillful manager now thinks 

 that high speed can be profitably maintained more than ten hours 

 a day. 



Again, it is claimed that wages are lower in the South than in 

 New England. This is true. The rate of wages is lower, but I 

 doubt if the cost of labor is any lower, if as low. It may be in a 

 very few of the best managed mills, but in taking the census of 

 1880 I made a very careful computation of the proportion of hands 

 to spindles and looms, and after making every allowance for dif- 

 ference in yarn, in number, and in quality of mills, I found that 



