OUTLOOK FOR THE COTTON INDUSTRY 185 



ment toward a higher civilization and higher 

 standards of living has largely increased the 

 demand for cotton. It has been estimated that 

 of the more than fifteen hundred million people 

 on the earth, only one third are well clothed, 

 one half are partly clothed, and the remainder 

 go without clothing. Something like forty-two 

 million bales would be necessary to clothe all 

 of the people of the world as we are clothed. 

 This fact indicates the immense room for 

 expansion in cotton production. It is believed 

 that the South can increase the cotton crop 

 as rapidly as the world's demand grows. When 

 we consider that in the cotton states but one 

 acre in seventeen is devoted to cotton, and 

 only one acre in eleven in the cotton counties, 

 there seems to be good reason for this belief. 

 The average yield per acre is now less than two 

 hundred pounds of lint cotton; but some of 

 the best farmers average from their entire farms 

 from five hundred to eight hundred pounds per 

 acre. This would indicate the possibility of 

 immensely increasing the crop, even were 

 there no increase in acreage. 



The low yields in the South may be largely 

 ascribed to the use of poor seed, run down, 



