Dr. 

 To machinery for producing four bales of 

 cotton 16 



484 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



This would seem to be a bad bargain. The planter will perhaps say, how- 

 ever, that we have allowed nothing for the use of the machinery employed in 

 the conversion. True, we have not. Neither have we charged anything for the 

 use of the machinery of production. Let us now see how that matter stands: 



The average production of cotton does not exceed 300 pounds of clean wool 

 to the acre. To produce two thousand bales would require, then, nearly twenty- 

 seven hundred acres, actually under cultivation, to say nothing of all the rest of 

 the plantation not in cultivation. The average amount of labor, per acre, for 

 fitting these lands for production, including fencing, machinery, buildings, giu- 

 houses, &c., is at least one hundred days, and we should be safe in putting it 

 much higher.* This would give 270,000 days of labor. A mill that will con- 

 vert these two thousand bales into cloth, does not represent more than 70,000 

 days of labor. The machinery of production is therefore more costly than that 

 of conversion, in the ratio of four to one. 



Under this head, then, the account will now stand thus ; 



Cr. 

 By machinery for converting one bale of 

 cotton 1 



The transaction appears to be a very unprofitable one. The planter is giving 

 five bales of cotton, produced by the aid of very costly machinery, for one bale 

 converted into cloth by aid of comparatively inexpensive machinery. He gives 

 four bales for doing that which, if the machinery were on or near his plantation, 

 might be done for less than one bale. 



In the performance of this operation, he is always in fact, as we have seen, 

 buying food and paying for it with cotton. He is always paying for it in distant 

 markets, where its price is high, while he or his countrymen are perpetually 

 engaged in the effort to sell it at low prices at home. In getting his yard of 

 cloth he pays for food consumed in the steamboat — in New-Orleans — on ship- 

 board — in Liverpool and Manchester, at which latter place it is, probably four 

 times higher than that at which he would gladly sell on his plantation, and he 

 wastes a vast quantity because of the want of a market near him, and the 

 heavy cost incident to its transportation to distant markets. 



One acre of land yields 300 pounds of cotton. One hand in a mill converts 8 

 bales, or 3,200 pounds, the produce of more than ten acres. 



An acre of land, well cultivated, will supply food for one person who will con- 

 vert these eight bales into cloth. 



The planter gives four bales for having one converted, or eight for the conver- 

 sion of two, according to the testimony of an enlightened journalist residing in 

 the heart of the cotton region, and speaking under the benefit of the best lights 

 on the subject. 



Let us now see how the account stands again : 



Dr. I Cr. 



To the use of five acres of cotton land. | By the use of one-eighth of an acre of food laud. 



It is obvious that nearly the whole of these bales are swallowed up in freights, 

 charges, commissions, &:c., and equally obvious that these charges consist almost 

 altogether of food, an article which the planter can supply in almost unlimited 

 quantity. Could these charges, occurring between the planter on the one side 

 and the weaver and the twister on the other, be saved, the planter would obtain 

 more than one bale of cloth for two of cotton. To accomplish this there is but 



* B. Smith, Esq , one of ibe wealthiest planters in the South-west, told u8 that it cost him $70 an acre to 

 cUar and prepare heavvtimbcrcd land for cotton on the Mississippi bottom. 

 (924) 



