ss 



SHKEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



ket. for eight or nine cents a yard.* I know of a manufacturer, at no grtsal 

 distance from me, who thus takes a manufactory worth perhaps SS,000 oi 

 $10,000, and furnishes the cloth (of the above stamp,) fitted for market, for 

 nine cents a yard, the owner furnishing the wool, the use of the manufac- 

 tory, and the dyeing matter.t The supply of water at this establishment 

 fails during two or three months each year ; and one competent to judge 

 informs me that seven cents would be better pay per yard, if the machine- 

 ry could be kept in motion the year round. It is probable that it would 

 cost rather more at the South to provide the necessary fixtuies, obtain 

 machinery, etc. ; and it would also cost more, for a period, to carry on 

 manufacturing, from the greater difficulty of obtaining operatives in case 

 of losing any of those attached to the establishment. All these disa<lvan- 

 tages, however, not of much importance at the first, will soon disappear. 

 Slaves should, as rapidly as the nature of the case admits of, be converted 

 into operatives, ar d when the number becomes once adequate to the end, it 

 might be indefinitely multiplied, without those embarrassments which so 

 rommonly attend the attempt to mingle white and black labor. 



It is cheaper to manufacture by hand,| (with the exception of carding, 

 fulling, and dressing,) than to purchase your slave cloths at present prices, 

 if slave costs no more than free labor. 



On the average, 15 knots of ^varp, and 15 of filling, make one yard of 

 flannel about 5 quarters wide. The ordinary shrinkage of this, in fulling 

 it into cloth, is one quarter in length and width. It would therefore re- 

 quire 40 knots to make a yard of fulled cloth. The carding here in small 

 parcels costs 3 cents per pound, and 18f cents per pound for fulling, dye- 

 ing and dressing. In considerable quantities, the carding can be hired done 

 fin- 2 cents per pound, and the other processes for one shilling per yard. 

 Spinning (by considerable quantities and for " cash-pay, "||) can be hired 

 done for 7 cents a run (20 knots) for warp, and 5 cents for filling — averag- 

 ing 6 cents for both. Weaving can be hired done for 6 cents joer yard (of 

 flannel), which brings it, in the dressed cloth, to 8 cents per yard. The ac- 

 count would then stand thus : 



Making 5b^ cents the price of a yard of domestic cloth, estmjating the 

 wool at market price : estimating the latter at cost of production (8 cents) 

 the price of the finished cloth would be 42^ cents per yard, and it is t 

 better article for wear than either the Welsh plains or Chelmsfords.§ 



* I have no doubt it could be done at a fair profit in the North for 7 centB per yard. I am understood, ol 

 course, to mean that the manufacturer pays no rent, insurance, nor for repairs. The stockholders fumisa 

 the wool, which is worked up by the former, at the stipulated price. 



\ Modern ingenuity has reduced the expense of this to a mere trifle. Most of the " sheep's grayB," yea 

 hmve observed, are of ferruginous hue Those of this color are dyed principally by tan bark — ihe bark cf 

 the hemlocli (Ahi.es canadinsU), which is sold here at $1 75 to $2 a cord ! 



t I am aware that to "manufacture" i> to make bi/ hand, but I use the word in its popular and more ge»< 

 eral signification. It would have lieen better to have compounded a word from the Latin machinm and 

 /acio fmachinfacturc?) to signify TOode fry machinery, and thus expressed the two ideas by properly do- 

 rived and definitive words. 



II This word " cash-pay " is one of mighty import in the regulation of prices in the interior, where a very 

 eeneral (but now decreasiiiir i systetn of barter prevails, and under which Wealth too often dictates tc 

 Want what it shall receive for its b<bor, and also prescribes the prices of the commodities in wlrch it pays. 



i Home-made fabrics are usually stronger and wear better than those made by machinery, .or, in othef 



* , i*- -. J ._i_.\-- _..^ ,lj..*-.i'^_*..— . J ,.-, — i\ 1.... .v.:., :« -.,,4. .«.^....»..«..;i«T s.. ' 



words, me.niifactured cloths outwear machinfactared i 



!) but this is not necessarily so. The severs! 



processes -an be done undouliteilly, and probably, generally are more perfectly by machinery than by 

 hand. Kit in machine-made cloths "the yarn is commonly spun finer, so there is less stock in a yard. Aaa 

 »hH> are d ibmitted to processes, described in a previous Note, which farther impair their stron}!;th. 



