26 COTTON 



THE LIMITS OF PROFITABLE COTTON PRODUCTION 

 IN THE SOUTH 



Stretch a line from Norfolk to Memphis, Lit- 

 tle Rock and Dallas, and you have the Cotton Belt 

 fairly outlined though cotton has been grown to 

 some extent north of this line. It was first culti- 

 vated in Virginia. One hundred and twenty years 

 ago it was found on farms in parts of Delaware. 

 "At the time of the Revolution the home-grown cot- 

 ton was sufficiently abundant in Pennsylvania to 

 supply the domestic needs of the State." Three 

 Maryland counties grew the crop largely up to 

 eighty years ago. In Civil War times Nevada and 

 Illinois also figured in cotton production. 



Of late years, however, the production of cotton 

 in all States beyond the borders of the old Southern 

 Confederacy has steadily diminished. Kentucky, 

 Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia each showed a 

 declining yield for the last census decade as com- 

 pared with the preceding decade. 



For fifty years now the median point of pro- 

 duction has been within a radius of about 75 miles 

 from Jackson, Mississippi, in the earlier period 

 northeast of Jackson, but in the last twenty years 

 carried northwest by the increase of the Texas 

 crop and the opening up of new lands in Oklahoma 

 and Indian Territory. The cotton section west of 

 the Mississippi grew 34 per cent, of the crop in 

 1879, 38 per cent, in 1889, and 43 per cent, in 1899. 

 The next census will probably show the center of 

 production as having for the first time crossed be- 

 yond the Father of Waters. 



