461 



and not an actual enumeration, which would be impossible in advance, 

 though very easy a year later in the light of recorded facts of the cot- 

 ton movement. Every year have they been assailed by two i)arties — the 

 producer, who deems the figures too high, and the manufacturer or trader, 

 who is sure they are too low; and usuall}^ both have had the grace to 

 make the amende before the cotton year expired. AJl preliminary esti- 

 mates are made from returns of October 1, at the close of the first pick- 

 ing, when good or bad weather for the three succeeding months may 

 make a difference of half a million bales in the result. To insure infalli- 

 bility in an estimate at that date would require omniscience in the 

 statistician, a qualification not yet required in civil service examinations. 

 Yet the earliest estimates of the past four years, 1866-'G9, have fallen 

 very little short of the actual returns, and have in no instance come far 

 from the aggregate of the receipts of the year, unless an exception be 

 made of last year, w hen the peculiarly mild and stormless autumn in- 

 creased the production over an average expectation fully a third of a 

 million bales, and the estimate was advanced accordingly to three mil- 

 lion bales. That estimate has been pronounced by the best authority 

 an entirely proper one for the time. The following statement will show 

 the difi'erence between the estimate and the commercial returns, the lat- 

 ter including nearly enough of the old crop grown prior to 18G6 to make 

 the difference — the figures being those of the New York Shipping List, 

 and including shipment by railroad northward as well as receipts at 

 cotton ports, but they do not include (in the years 18GG-'G9) about 80,000 

 bales per annum used in the South : 



Pi-eliminary estimate. Total receipts. 



Year. Bales. Bales. 



18G6 1,835,000 2,031,988 



18G7 2,340,000 2,430,892 



1868 2,380,000 2,200,557 



1869 2,750,000 3,114,592 



9, 305, 000 9, 838, 029 



It is also our aim, in a preliminary estimate, to fall a little below 

 rather than go an ounce above the i^robable yield, and thus give the 

 benefit of any doubtorcontiugency to the producer, while honestly aim- 

 ing to bring to light the precise facts of production, however they may 

 affect prices, planting, or manufacture. If these estimates, made upon 

 this i)lau before the crop was grown, are not sufficiently accurate, they 

 are, at least, uniformly the most comi)lete, full, and reliable that have 

 appeared before the crop was gxown, 



hii'jar Cane. — The increase in cane over last year is estimated at 

 thirty per cent, in Louisiana, a similar rate is returned for Texas, and 

 some advance has been made in Georgia and Florida. So much cane is 

 annually used as plant cane in extending the acreage that the product 

 of sugar and molasses does not represent the real increase in cane 

 growing. It is reported from West Feliciana, (Louisiana,) that the 

 crop promised well until the middle of September, since which time 

 want of rain has reduced the yield. In Rapides the acreage is increased 

 by thirty per cent. In Terre Bonne fifty per cent, increase in the pro- 

 duct was promised in November. Drought has somewhat reduced ex- 

 pectations in St. Mary's, as also in Leon Parish. The prospect is very 

 favorable in Iberia Parish. Recent frosts have injured the cane to a 

 considerable extent, and it is feared that it will sour before it can be 



