COTTON. 



253 



XPOET FROM AND CO\SrMPTION OP COTTON IN THE 

 UNITED STATES. 



other places on the globe's surface, does produce 

 cotton there is no doubt ; but the cotton- is 

 nowhere equal to the American. 



The cotton mostly manufactured is of several 

 sorts : A fine long-stapled cotton called " Sea 

 Island," grown only on the coast of Georgia. 

 It has a small black seed, and is easily cleaned. 

 The quantity is very small, not over 20,000,000 

 Ibs. per annum being made. It is used mostly 

 for muslin thread and the finest numbers of 

 yarns 100 and upwards. It will command 

 generally 50 cents per lb.^ but as it is used 

 in those descriptions of goods of which the 

 greatest cost is the labor, the price is not so 

 material. 



A similar description of poorer quality is 



grown in Australia to a small extent. There is 



Iso a long, strong, fine yellowish cotton grown 



Egypt. From Brazil comes a coarse, harsh, 

 Bright-colored cotton, but strong and long-sta- 

 pled, and a very small quantity of similar cotton 

 >om the "West Indies. These long-stapled cot- 

 tons are required to spin into yarns higher than 

 No. 50's, and make the " warp," that is, the 

 longitudinal threads of cloth. The short cot- 

 tons will not answer for these yarns. 



The great American crop is a soft, white, 

 silky medium staple, and is used for the lower 

 or coarse numbers of warp and mostly for the 

 weft. Every piece of cotton cloth requires 

 two to five times as much -weft as warp, and 

 the whole manufacture requires nine pounds 



of this American cotton for one of any other. 

 Its price ranges from 6 to 12 cents. It is now 

 25 cents, as a war price. 



The Indian or Surat cotton is a dry, fuzzy, 

 harsh, and very short-stapled article. It is 

 used exclusively for weft, mixed with Ameri- 

 can. If it is used alone the cloth has a rough, 

 woolly feel, and after washing or bleaching has 

 a thin, meagre look. It has, however, a good 

 color, and is cheap. Its market price is gener- 

 ally two-thirds that of the United States cotton. 

 If the United States article were sufficiently 

 abundant, and as cheap, the Surat cotton would 

 not be used at all. The greatest efforts have 

 been made to naturalize the American cotton 

 in India ; but where it lives at all, it in three 

 years degenerates into the Surat sort. 



Thus the difficulty in supply is not so much 

 quantity as quality, but the quantity .is also a 

 serious matter. The present United States 

 growth has been developed under the most 

 favorable circumstances of new land and labor 

 in the space of sixty-six years, and in the last 

 ten the consumption has so outrun production 

 that the price has constantly risen without 

 drawing from other sources much, if any in- 

 crease of supply. 



The supply of cotton from sources other than 

 the United States exceeded that of the latter 

 by 44 per cent, up to 1820. From that time 

 up to 1845 the United States supply gained 

 rapidly. After that date the spread of manu- 

 facture in the United States trenched upon the 

 quantities that otherwise could have been ex- 

 ported, while on the part of other producing 

 countries the machine-made goods of England 

 gradually supplanted the local hand manufac- 

 tures. The result was a larger quantity of raw 

 cotton to be sent to England, but also a larger 

 demand for goods thence, until all the cotton- 

 producing countries, except the United States, 

 buy more ct)tton of England than they send 

 thither. The proof is in the following table, 

 showing from the official sources the weight of 

 cotton imported, and the weight of cotton 

 goods returned to each country in 1861 : 



Cotton Imported. Goods and Tarn Eip'd. 

 lb. Ito. 



East Indies 377,616,500 273.286,110 



Brazils 18.170,100 20,181,000 



Esrvpt 35,590,601 16J51,000 



West Indies 1,980,110 10,271,100 



Total Ibs 443,657,311 319,889,210 



There were reexported from England 166,- 

 000,000 Ibs. of the products of other countries 

 to mix with the American cotton used in Eu- 

 rope. Hence it will be observed that the 

 American supply is alone that on which the 

 trade depends. In those years in which the 

 American crop falls short the price rises in Liv- 

 erpool, and, as a consequence, more is drawn 

 from the other countries, as in the year 1861. 



The following table shows the quantities im- 

 ported into Great Britain from each chief source 

 since 1820, with the average price of leading 

 descriptions in Liverpool for each year. 



