142 COTTON CULTURE. 



planters, in favorable seasons, may make more than a 

 living. 



When its price is above fifteen cents, and from that to 

 thirty^skill and good fortune, with a reliable system of 

 labor, must enable the cotton grower in the best parts of 

 the cotton belt to grow rich. 



The probabilities are, that, as the tumults and disorders 

 incident to the great civil war abate, the price of cotton 

 will slowly decline to about fifteen cents, where it must 

 remain, in order to be a profitable crop when raised by 

 free labor. 



On this basis, the price of a yard of ordinary shirting 

 or sheeting will be from eighteen to twenty cents, accord- 

 ing to fineness, and a fair calico or print can be afforded 

 for about sixteen cents. But, at these prices, below which 

 there is no likelihood that cotton fabrics can fall, no mate- 

 rial can at all compete with this as the universal dress. 

 As in food, the poor man buys the largest amount of 

 palatable nourishment when he expends it in corn meal at 

 three cents a pound, so, when he buys the material for a 

 plain shirt for fifty cents, there is no way of expending 

 half a dollar by which he can buy so much of comfort, 

 durability and neatness, as in buying three yards of un- 

 bleached domestic. 



At that rate, and in summer time, the laborer can be 

 decently covered by expending two dollars in cotton cloth. 



The enormous demand for cheap cloth for the million 

 has been so steady, ever since the gin and the jenny were 

 invented, that only a small amount of the great staple has 

 ever been diverted to the production of other articles use- 

 ful in the domestic arts and comforts. Cotton has been 

 called "vegetable wool," and on many accounts it answers 

 admirably to that description. It stands half way, as it 

 were, between the animal and vegetable kingdom, having 

 some of the characteristic advantages of each. Fine, soft, 

 and glossy, it reminds one of silk in the delicacy of its 



