SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 301 



and intelligent planters " to take measures for counteracting these 

 efforts which were being made by the East India Company. " It 

 was then decided that so long as the American planters could 

 get 8 cents (4d.) per pound for their cotton, delivered at the 

 nearest market, they could afford to produce it, but that if a 

 supply from any other quarter could be obtained for less than 

 that sum, they must then turn their attention to the cultivation 

 of other commodities," 



In 1849 several of the large planters on the Mississippi bottoms 

 estimated that they could grow cotton for 6 cents a pound,, and 

 planters writing for De Bow's Review declared that when they 

 were obliged to raise cotton for 5 cents, the business was ruin- 

 ous. The smaller planters must have had still higher prices if 

 they found production profitable. Except during the decade be- 

 tween 1840 and 1850, cotton rarely sank below 10 cents a pound 

 on the New York and Liverpool markets, and this was deemed 

 sufficient, after deducting commissions and other marketing ex- 

 penses, to enable the planter to make a profit. Ten cents seems, 

 indeed, to have been considered the golden mean of cotton prices. 

 If cotton sank below this figure its production became unprofit- 

 able ; if it rose above 10 cents, labor became " too dear to increase 

 production rapidly." 



