200 



COTTON. 



items, as against any results from these sources I 

 should have to put the expenses of maintenance. 

 These brief details may, however, serve to show my 

 fellow bondholdNI tl.iit, in the railway oi't 'n-tu Uii-a, 

 there is a basis on which t*> found some hope for im- 

 provcmi'iit in tin- value 'f tin- Iniiids thev hold; and, 

 as I am informed tluit 1're.sident QoHtfia will be in 

 London in the course of a few days, nud that he holds 

 full powers not only to negotiate, but to accept an 

 arrangement, subject only to the confirmation of rn- 

 greas, 1 am strongly of opinion that the bondholders 

 should not lose tin'- prvx-nt opportonifr. but should 

 at once take energetic action. I do not tear Unit any 

 negotiation can bo concluded irrespective of the bond- 

 holder-, tr iu 1'nris ami Amsterdam there are also 

 many persons* who have invested in the loans, and 

 who' would not permit any new advances to the (i<>v- 

 ernment ot Costa Rica unless their prior claims were 



nv _':!.. 1. 



la the article COLOMBIA, in the present vol- 

 ume, will be found mention of a treaty between 

 that republic and Costa Rica, to procure Eu- 

 ropean arbitration upon the question of tho 

 ownership of the disputed territory on the 

 isthmus 



COTTON. The extraordinary increase 

 whk-h has taken place in the yield of cotton 

 ir. the United States (see statistics in COMMERCE 

 AND FIXAXOE, AMERICAS, IN 1881) is insignifi- 

 cant in comparison to the capabilities of the 

 country for expanding the production of this 

 staple. The United States produces now just 

 about four fifths of the cotton grown in the 

 world, and the product of the other countries, 

 notably of India and Egypt, the largest pro- 

 ducers, is rather diminishing than increasing 

 at present. For the last six years the average 

 cotton crop has been 5,000,000 bales; in 1880- 

 '81 it exceeded 6,500,000 bales. Yet, oat of 

 every hundred acres capable of producing 

 cotton not more than two or three have been 

 under cultivation; and the yield per acre is 

 not half as great in quantity, and very much 

 inferior in quality, to what it might be made. 

 In 1879-'80 the cotton acreage was 14,441,993 

 acres; the yield was 5,737,257 bales, or an" 

 average of four bales of 475 pounds to ten 

 acres. Under careful cultivation a bale an 

 acre is commonly obtained, and two bales are 

 often grown. The fertile Yazoo bottom in 

 Mississippi yields, with the present imperfect 

 cultivation and incomplete picking, three bales 

 to every four acres. There are 3,000,000 acres 

 of land in the same district which could be 

 reclaimed by simply excluding the Mississippi 

 overflows. This would increase the product 

 of the Yazoo flats to 2,250,000 bales, which 

 might be more than doubled by improved cul- 

 tivation, and the State of Mississippi could 

 produce on this tract and on the uplands as 

 much as the entire crop of the United States. 

 Texas is capable, when its entire cotton area is 

 utilized to the best advantage, of producing 

 ten times the present crop of the whole coun- 

 try. 



A slight lowering of the cost has always the 

 effect of increasing the consumptive demand 

 for this universally desired commodity in an 

 extraordinary degree. The consumptive ca- 



pacity of the world could at a reasonable cal- 

 culation be many times multiplied through the 

 economies in production which can be obtained 

 iroin improved methods and appliances that are 

 already known. As a means of calling the at- 

 tention of cotton-growers to improved methods 

 in the cultivation and handling of cotton, Ed- 

 ward Atkinson, a statistician and expert asso- 

 ciated with manufacturing industries in New 

 England, suggested, through the medium of the 

 press in 1880, the plan of holding a special 

 Cotton Exhibition, in which all the products 

 and materials of the cotton industry, and all 

 the mechanical appliances employed from the 

 planting of the seed to the turning out of the 

 finished web at the mill, could be inspected 

 and Compared. Atkinson had primarily in 

 mind the demonstration to the Southern grow- 

 ers of the advantage of more thoroughly clean- 

 ing the raw fiber before packing it for sale to 

 the manufacturers and exporters, and proposed 

 that the exhibition should be held in Atlanta 

 in 1881. The business men of Georgia and 

 other Southern States caught at the suggestion, 

 wishing to show the advantages of the South 

 as a cotton-manufacturing locality, which had 

 been proved by the success of recently estab- 

 lished factories, and to attract the attention 

 of capitalists to the manifold other industrial 

 capabilities of their section. (See EXPOSITION 

 at Atlanta.) 



The need of some efficient mechanical de- 

 vice for the rapid gathering of cotton is ur- 

 gently felt. The crop is nearly every year 

 in danger, and frequently seriously damaged, 

 while there is a constant waste of enormous 

 aggregate amount, through lack of good har- 

 vesting machinery. The various cotton-pickers 

 which have been invented may none of them 

 be superior to hand-picking, since none has yet 

 supplanted the primitive method. For the as- 

 sistance of the laborer in sustaining the awk- 

 ward position while picking, a pair of staves, 

 fastened to the legs and holding a belt under 

 the body, is a patented device which is some- 

 times used. A mechanical hand-picker has 

 been invented, consisting of a rotating spindle 

 which is kept moist, and winds the lint out of 

 the boll, the spindle being turned by means of 

 a crank. Another device is an endless toothed 

 chain, driven by a sprocket-wheel and crank, 

 with an appliance for stripping the cotton off 

 the barbs into a basket. A simple band-picker 

 which has been lately patented consists of 

 gloves with wire hooks, worn on both hands, 

 and a brush at the waist to rub off the cotton 

 into a bag below. An older and more complex 

 device is a reciprocating tongue provided with 

 barbs which detaches the cotton from the boll, 

 the agitation of the tongue moving the cotton 

 gradually up through an oblong box by the aid 

 of an elastic plate provided with spines, de- 

 positing it at the end in a bag. A pneumatic 

 tube connected with an exhaust pump or fan 

 has been tried, the hose being applied to the 

 bolls by hand. An electric cotton-picker was 





