22 COTTON 
forest, marsh and barren—might be planted to cot- 
ton without equalling the area which the South an- 
nually plants to this favorite farm staple. And all 
this is in the face of the fact that cotton, more 
largely than any other American crop, is dependent 
upon hand labor. The increased cost by reason of 
this fact, however, naturally leads to correspond- 
ingly greater profits, so that in 1899 24,000,000 
acres planted to cotton (and at prices very much 
lower than now obtain) produced $323,000,000 
in values, while the wheat crop from more than 
twice this area was worth only $369,000,000, and 
the value of the corn crop from about four times 
the cotton acreage was only $828,000,000. 
