228 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OP SCIENCE 



war, caused a very serious shortage of raw cotton both 

 in America and western Europe. Thus the price of 

 cotton was high and many southern Illinois farmers 

 found cotton the most profitable crop they could raise. 



These statistics show some rather remarkable things. 

 In the first place, the largest producing counties in 1865 

 were not the extreme southern counties of Alexander, 

 Pulaski, Massac, and Pope, but Jackson, Union, William- 

 son and Johnson counties, somewhat farther north. 

 Jackson county alone produced more than twice as much 

 as the five southernmost counties combined. In the second 

 place most of the cotton was not produced in the more 

 fertile bottom lands of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, 

 but on the warmer south and east slopes of the hill lands 

 of Jackson, Union, Williamson, and Johnson counties. 

 Even the hill county of Massac produced more than twice 

 as much cotton as the two counties of Pulaski and Alex- 

 ander with their much larger proportion of river bottom 

 land. The explanation of this is that the river bottom 

 lands in 1865 were still largely in timber, poorly drained, 

 and not well protected from floods, while the hill lands 

 still retained much of their virgin fertility of soil, were 

 warmer, and much better drained. Cotton needs warm 

 and well drained lands quite as much as lands of high 

 fertility. 



Owing to the fact that the Illinois Central railroad was 

 the only road having a direct outlet to the north and 

 thence east to New York City, nearly all the cotton was 

 marketed in towns along the Illinois Central railroad. 

 Of all these towns Carbondale was the most accessible to 

 the chief cotton producing counties and as a consequence 

 became the chief cotton market in Illinois. In 1865 there 

 were 11 cotton gins in and near Carbondale. Carbon- 

 dale was the shipping point for most of the cotton of 

 Jackson, Williamson, Saline, Gallatin, northern Hardin, 

 Pope, and Johnson counties. 



The importance of Carbondale as a cotton market can 

 be gained also from this statement of Newsome, who 

 says: "At one time there were about a dozen cotton gins 



"Pearcy, A. J.: Transactions of 111. State Agr. Society. Vol. 6, 1865-6, 

 Page 66. 



