12 



Table IX. — Showing supply and consumption of cotton in the United States and Europ 



surplus stocks and prices. 



[In bales.] 



1871. — Excellent seasous in the cotton States and the largest crops since the war. 



1873. — Cotton badly damaged by excessive rains. 



1873. — Financial panic in the United States and Europe. Cotton acreage reduced. 



1874. — Estimated increase in acreage, 11 per cent. 



1875. — Late planting season on account of rains. Damaging floods in Mississippi 

 Valley. 



1876. — Improved methods of cultivation noticed this year in use of double plows, 

 sulky cultivators, and cotton planters. Number of spindles in India, 1,124,000. 



1877. — Additional ports opened to trade in China. The threatened war in Europe 

 affects the cotton trade. 



1878. — Labor strikes in the mill districts of England and greatly reduced consump- 

 tion in that country. A year of commercial depression unprecedented in the cotton 

 trade. Number of spindles in Europe, 59,463,000. 



1879. — This year the United States regains the position occupied prior to the civil 

 war in cotton production, and the largest crop in their history is made. 



1880. — Revival in the cotton trade. The number of mills in the United States, 

 756; spindles, 10,678,516. 



Prices. — This was a period of remarkable fluctuations in prices, produced by the 

 war in Europe, strikes and depressions in the English manufacturing districts, 

 famine in the East, and the financial panic of 1873. The comparatively short stocks 

 at the close of the year preceding, and a crop over a million and a quarter bales 

 smaller, together with an increased demand at home and abroad, resulted in a con- 

 .siderable advance in prices in 1872. However, with increasing crops the years fol- 

 lowing, and very large accumulations of stocks at the close of the years 1872-1876, 

 J) rices gradually declined until 1880, though maintaining much more uniformity 

 after the year 1876. A noteworthy occurrence toward the end of this decade was 

 the production of crops equal in magnitude to those produced just prior to the civil 

 war, and a fall in prices to the level prevailing at that time. Reviewing the cotton 

 trade afc this time, Messrs. Ellison & Co., of Liverpool, say: '^ Eighteen hundred 

 and seventy-nine witnessed the culmination of an unusually protracted period of 

 depression in every branch of trade everywhere. The depression was due in part 

 to an inevitable reaction from previous extravagance, inflation, and overtrading, 

 whereby the world was gorged with manufactures at high prices, and in part to the 

 diminished purchasing power of the masses in Europe, India, and China, resulting 

 from a succession of famines and deficient harvests. >' * * The rate of produc- 



