COTTON 43 



clothed, and 250,000,000 habitually go . almost 

 naked, and that to clothe the entire population of 

 the world would require 42,000,000 bales of 500 

 pounds each. It therefore seems more than likely 

 that the cotton industry will go on expanding until 

 the whole of the inhabited earth is clothed with the 

 products of its looms." 



And it is the opinion of the authors that the South 

 will increase her production just as fast as the world 

 increases her demands. We have yet a shamefully 

 low average yield; we are depending yet on fear- 

 fully mistreated soils ; we are yet planting miserably 

 selected seed ; and we have very inefficient tools and 

 machinery. Necessity, that mother of invention, 

 will help us reform these abuses just as necessity 

 brought about the new inventions in cotton spin- 

 ning, and just as necessity brought about Whitney's 

 cotton gin. When it becomes necessary for her to 

 furnish the world 25,000,000 bales of cotton, the 

 South will furnish it. 



OF SOUTHERN LANDS ONLY ONE ACRE IN SEVEN- 

 TEEN NOW IN COTTON 



Even if we were not going to double the yield 

 (and unless the boll weevil interferes, men now liv- 

 ing may see that result) , we have enough available 

 idle land to make 30,000,000 bales with the present 

 low average yield per acre. Of the twelve Cotton 

 States only one acre in seventeen is now planted 

 to the fleecy staple, and only one acre in eleven of 

 the cotton-producing counties. Only two-fifths 

 of the farm lands of the South are yet improved for 

 any sort of crop. t 



The great trouble is that we have so long allowed 

 the bulk of our cotton lands to be butchered by 



