MANUFACTURES. 583 



The returns are only partially complete, and it was found impracticable 

 to obtain answers in full, unless there were some law compelling the mill 

 owners to make them. No returns whatever could be obtained from the 

 Pendleton Factory, and those published some years since were used. The 

 lirst nine columns are very nearly complete, and furnish important in- 

 formation. The aggregate of the other columns is given l)y estimates 

 Inised, in part, upon Mr. Edward Atkinson's statements regarding the mills 

 in Soutli Carolina in ISSO, and in part on deductions from the data fur- 

 nished by such mills as made complete returns to the Department of Ag- 

 riculture. Looking from this enumeration in 1882, backwards to the 

 condition of the cotton manufactures in South Carolina in 1850, it will 

 l)e seen that the number of mills has increased forty-four per cent.; the 

 numl)er of spindles is nearly six-fold greater, showing an increase of four 

 hundred and eighty-eight per cent. ; the capital employed is nearly five 

 times as nmch, showing an increase of tliree hundred and seventy -six per 

 cent. ; there are more than four times as many hands, their increase being 

 three hundred and thirt3"-nine per cent. ; the value of the products has 

 increased eight hundred and sixty-seven per cent., and the amount of raw 

 material annually consumed, nine hundred and seventy-four per cent. 

 Nor does this movement seem as yet to have approached a limit. There 

 i-^ scarcely a town above the lower Pine Belt, that is, in the upper two- 

 1 birds of tlie State, in which the erection of one or more cotton mills is 

 not being actively agitated ; at the last session of the Legislature, in De- 

 cember, 1882, nine new companies for the manufacture of cotton Avere in- 

 corporated, and several of these will commence operations on the present 

 cotton crop. It would seem that this State, which was a pioneer in the 

 cultivation of cotton, is about to assume the position of a cotton manu- 

 facturing State on a large scale. Already the forty-seven millions of 

 pounds of raw cotton required by the spindles in operation in this State, 

 in 1883, is more than the average consumptionof the whole United States 

 from 1825 to 1830, which is placed at 129,954 bales per annum, averaging 

 le?s than four hundred pounds. Already also, the value of the products 

 of the mills in this State exceeds the cost of the cotton goods consumed 

 annually within its borders, assuming this to be about the average 

 consumption per capita of the whole country. For if the value of the 

 products of cotton manufactures in the United States ($192,090,110) be 

 added to the value of the yearly imports of cotton stuffs ($29,922,000) and 

 from this sum the value of the yearly exports (§9,981,000) be deducted, 

 the remainder will represent the domestic consumption,and will be about 

 $4.22 to each inhabitant of the country. On this basis the consumption 

 of cotton goods in Carolina would bs less than $5,000,000 per annum, 

 and the mills running in 1SS3 are expected to yield a product exceading 



