STATISTICS OF COTTON PRODUCTION 469 



three -fifths were produced in North America, more than 

 three-tenths in Asia, and about one-fourteenth in Africa. 

 The average annual production for this period in bales of 500 

 pounds gross or 478 pounds net weight was as follows: 

 North America, 11,812,650 bales; South America, 418,- 

 505 bales; Europe, 24,309 bales; Asia, 6,215,747 bales; 

 Africa, 1,347,646 bales; and Oceanica, 221 bales. 



Practically the entire crop of North America was pro- 

 duced in the United States, the average annual production 

 for the five years being 11,640,551 bales. India ranks next 

 to the United States in the production of cotton, with a crop 

 of 4,058,000 bales; Egypt follows with 1,317,585 bales, and 

 China with 1,200,000 bales. No other country is an impor- 

 tant factor in the production of cotton. 



617. Production in the United States. The increase in 

 the production of cotton in the United States since the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century is one of our most 

 remarkable records of progress. There has been a continual 

 increase in the production of cotton since 1800, except in 

 the decade from 1861 to 1870, when the war between the 

 states practically demoralized the cotton industry of the 

 South. The crop of 1864 was less than 300,000 bales, though 

 five years previous the production reached 4,500,000 bales. 

 In the decade from 1870 to 1880 there was a gradual recovery 

 in the industry, the average production being more than 

 4,000,000 bales. Since then, the increase has been about 

 2,500,000 bales annually for each decade. 



Figure 142 shows that the production of cotton is con- 

 fined almost entirely to the states in the southeastern 

 portion of the United States. In ten of these states, the 

 average area in cotton from 1902 to 1911 was almost 30,000,- 

 000 acres. The annual production for the United States was 

 11,861,646 bales, and the average annual value of the crop 



