COTTON CULTURE 133 



CHAPTER Y. 



HOW TO REALIZE THE MOST FROM A CROP ; SUGGESTIONS 



AS TO THE UNION OF THE GROWING OF COTTON WITH 



ITS MANUFACTURE INTO TARNS AND FABRICS. 



The most that can be expected, or rationally proposed 

 for the South, in the present generation, is a manufactur- 

 ing system by which she may be able to produce the 

 greater part of the plainer and coarser fabrics necessary 

 for her consumption. It is practicable for the cotton- 

 growing communities to produce on the spot, and within 

 sight of the fields where the staple grows, their own Low- 

 ells and Osnaburgs, their own Linseys, and enough coarse 

 bagging-cloth to make neat and snug wrappings for that 

 part of the crop which is exported. 



Instead of the present system, where every planter who 

 makes upwards of twenty bales considers it necessary to 

 have a gin, gin-house, cotton-sheds, and packing screw of 

 his own, let the planting communities unite in the erection 

 and equipment of a large neighborhood factory, with ar- 

 rangements and conveniences for manipulating the entire 

 crop raised within, say, six miles of the spot of its produc- 

 tion, and making the most of it in every sense of the 

 word. By estimating the present and prospective density 

 of the population, the amount of the coarser cotton fabrics 

 demanded for the yearly consumption of the community 

 can readily be estimated. 



In many parts of the cotton States, a neighborhood, or 

 community, living within about five miles of a common 

 centre, produces, in a favorable year, five thousand bales 

 of cotton. The number of persons of all ages and both. 

 sexes, in such a community, is about fifteen hundred. I 

 speak now of a strictly agricultural township where cotton 

 growing is the business, everything else being subordinate 

 and auxiliary to this principal occupation. The average 



