COTTON. 



207 



raised the preceding year. The main difficulty 

 seems to arise from the transitory state of the 

 labor system in the Southern States. It has 

 heen found impossible to employ successfully as- 

 sociated labor to the extent necessary to carry 

 on large plantations, and the " squad system " 

 which has succeeded that method has proved 

 to be much lesg productive, on account of a 

 lack of concert of action and systematic divis- 

 ion and distribution of labor. The consequence 

 is, that large plantations have been aban- 

 doned or broken up into small farms, and 

 a much larger portion of the land than formerly 

 devoted to the production of grain and vege- 

 tables. There has also been a great lack of 

 working force which could be applied in any 

 form to the cultivation of cotton. The freed- 

 man shows a disinclination to be employed in 

 any extended system of labor, and prefers to 

 have a little home of his own, where he can 

 raise grain and provisions for his own sup- 

 port, and give little attention to this great 

 staple of the South. The whole number of 

 negroes engaged in cultivating cotton during 

 the past year has been 600,000, while 200,000 

 white men have been engaged in the same oc- 

 cupation. Steps have been taken in several 

 of the Southern States for the encouragement 



of immigration, with a view to building up 

 this and the other material interests of that 

 section of the country. Improved lands in 

 the cotton-growing States can now be pur- 

 chased at prices ranging from $5 to $25 per 

 acre. The aversion which the proprietors 

 formerly had to a division of their plantations 

 is rapidly giving way to the demands of the 

 altered times, and lots of any desired extent 

 can be easily obtained. Whether the cultiva- 

 tion of cotton upon large plantations is to be 

 entirely superseded by its production on small 

 farms like the grain crops of the North, is one 

 of the problems which the immediate future 

 is likely to solve. The use of fertilizers on the 

 cotton-fields has been already introduced with 

 favorable results. 



The consumption of cotton in the United 

 States during the last year amounted to 968,000 

 bales, which shows a falling off of 14,000 bales 

 from the amount used during the preceding 

 year. A somewhat larger proportion of the 

 manufacturing of the country has been done in 

 the South and West than heretofore, but the 

 change is not significant. The following table 

 exhibits with approximate accuracy the state 

 of the cotton manufactures for the year ending 

 October 1, 1869 : 



EECAPITULATION. 



The total crop of cotton in the United States being about 465 pounds. The following state- 



for the year 1868-'69 amounted to 2,439,039 ment gives in parallel columns the product of 



bales, against 2,593,993 bales for the pre- the two years in the different cotton-growing 



ceding year, the average weight of a bale States: 



