No. 12. 



Cot/on Slafistics. 



371 



Cotton Statistics. 



A very interest! ngf article on tlie subject 

 of cotton was published in one of the early 

 numbers of the United States Magazine, in 

 which it is, very correctly we think, refi^arded 

 in a physical nature, as our most important 

 national interest. It is the great staple on 

 which our vast foreign commerce mainly de- 

 pends. "This," says the writer, "affords 

 the rich mine from which we draw the means 

 of paying for the enormous quantity of the 

 productions of foreign art, now necessary [in 

 consequence of improper indulgence] to tiie 

 daily comfort of all classes of our population.* 

 If the Englisli s^/rt?i?'??i,'-Jc«7iy is the sceptre 

 with which the Island Queen rules the world 

 with an undisputed sway of commercial as- 

 cendency, the American saw-gin-f is an in- 

 strument of power upon which the other is 

 itself almost wholly dependent for its ability 

 to maintain that magnificent dominion." 



A writer, over the signature of " Cotton 

 Plant," in the Southern Cultivator, furnishes 

 the following contributions to the statistics 

 of this staple production, gathered, mainly, it 

 will be seen, from the valuable letter of the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, a document evinc- 

 ing the most laborious research, and replete 

 with interest and information. He says : — 



" First, (to begin at the beginning,) the 

 word itself is said to be of Arabic origin. The 

 plant which produces the down, called "cot- 

 ton," is of three or four general varieties — 

 the tree or shrub, the annual, herbaceous, 

 &c. The kinds chiefly cultivated now, and 

 especially in the United States, are the lat- 

 ter. The Sea Island cotton is grown to some 

 extent in Georgia, South Carolina, and 

 Florida. 



" It is difficult to trace back with accuracy 

 the earliest cultivation of cotton. It is found 

 indigenous in Soutli America and in parts of 

 Africa; and the chief clothing of the inhabi- 

 tants of South America and Mexico, was of 

 cotton when the continent was first disco- 

 vered by the Spaniards. It was probably 

 grown and used largely in Arabia, India, 

 America and Africa, by the ancients. In 

 China, its cultivation began in the 13th cen- 



* Favored as we are with a varied climate, we can. 

 and we ou»ht, as a nation, to raise all tliat is necessa- 

 ry to our comfort and i:o!iv:Miionce. 



t Invented by Eli Wliiiiu'v, a native of Massachu- 

 wetts, who settled in Georgi.i iu the year 1792, as a 

 private family tutor. 



tury, for the purposes of manufacture, though 

 previously raised in gardens for ornament. 

 In the West Indies, cotton was grown first 

 in 177G, at St. Domingo, but earlier in other 

 islands. It was fir.st planted or cultivated in 

 Brazil, in 1781, for e.vportation. In 178G, 

 cotton was first grown in the United States, 

 and the first exportation, of wliich we have 

 any account, was in the year 1770, of foreign 

 growth, when five bales or bags were ex- 

 ported. The first exportation of native 

 growth took place in 17'.U. 



"At this time, all the foreign exports in 

 the world are supposed not to exceed five 

 hundred and lifty millions of pounds. Of this, 

 the United States now export about four hun- 

 dred millions. The largest portion of the 

 residue is from the remotest parts of Asia, 

 very little of it coming to Europe. To pro- 

 duce the present crop of the United States, 

 about two millions of acresare in cultivation, 

 and about four hundred thousand field hands 

 employed. To raise the whole amount of 

 cotton exported in the world, it would require 

 the cultivation of five hundred thousand acres 

 more of cotton land, and the employment of 

 one hundred thousand more laborers. The 

 following views of the present Secretary of 

 the Treasury are not without interest and in- 

 struction : 



" ' But supposing that Asia, from her dis- 

 tance and habits, continues to use chiefly her 

 own raw cotton, that the increase of popula- 

 tion in the United States should continue 

 much as heretofore, and that the countries in 

 Europe and elsewhere, now supplied with 

 cotton manufactures made chiefly from our 

 crops, should increase in population, or in the 

 use of cotton, as fast as the United States 

 does in population alone, and there would be 

 required to supply the increased annual de- 

 mand only about twenty-one millions of 

 pounds more of raw cotton, or the product in 

 the United States of less than seventy thou- 

 sand acres more each year. This has been 

 nearly our average increase of crops for the 

 la-ot ten years. It has required about eleven 

 thousand more field laborers a year, or only 

 one fortieth the annual increase of our whole 

 population. But we probably have now, not 

 in cultivation, more acres of land suitable for 

 cotton than would be sufficient to raise all 

 the cotton grown in the world. Hence, it 

 must be obvious that tliere is good cotton 

 land enough in the United States, at low 

 prices, easily to grow, not only all the cot- 

 ton wanted for foreign export in the world, 

 but to supply the increased demand for it, 

 probably for ages. 



" ' The only preventive of which there is 

 much likelihood, seems to be in the augment- 

 ed price of sucli labor as is usually devoted 

 to this culture ; so that it may not be possible 



