May, 1909.] 



127 



Fibres- 



and also in towns which will employ all 

 available labour for many years to 

 come. When the men are getting such 

 high wages the women and children 

 refuse to work on the land. This crip- 

 plies the cotton industry, making farm- 

 ers unable to harvest their crops before 

 the frost comes, which injures much of 

 the fibre by discolouring it. There is 

 no suitable machinery for picking cotton, 

 and success in cotton cultivation in 

 any country is to a large extent de- 

 pendent on the efficiency and cost of 

 hand labour. 



Picking costs 3s. lid. per 100 lb. of 

 seed-cotton on an average or approxi- 

 mately £2 6s. per bale of 500 lb. of fibre 

 (1,450 to 1,5001b. of seed-cotton yield 500 

 lb. of fibre). 



There are considerable expenses con- 

 nected with handling cotton from the 

 time of harvest until it is sold. The 

 following calculation will show approxi- 

 mately the cost of picking, transport- 

 ing and marketing a 500-lb. bale of 

 cotton grown 200 miles from any of the 

 large ports, such as Savannah, New 

 Orleans or Galveston- 



£ s. d. 



Picking 1,500 lb. seed-cotton ... 2 10* 

 Transport from farm to gin ... 4 2 

 Ginning ... ... 4 2 



Railway transport, 200 miles at 

 20 cents per 100 lbs. per 100 

 miles ... ... 8 4 



Factoring and insurance ... 3 



Total 3 9 91 



If the value of the bale is considered 

 as £10 8s, 4d. (5d. per lb.), the above 

 shows that the handling of the crop 

 costs the American farmer 33w per cent, 

 of the gross value of his cotton, the cost 

 of picking alone representing fully 22 

 per cent, of its gross value. 



It is impossible to make the same 

 complete calculation for cotton grown 

 in Egypt, as the Egyptain farmer sells 

 his crop at the farm as seed-cotton to 

 the ginner, who bears the cost of 

 transport and ginning. The following 

 calculation will show the percentage 

 cost of labour to gross value in the 

 operation of picking. 



Picking 1,50C lb. seed-cotton at H 

 millimesper lb. =2850 mill. £2 0s. 10^d" 



Thus the actual cost of picking is the 

 same as iu the United States, but it is 

 well to remember that an average picker 

 in America gathers 1001b. of seed-cotton 

 daily, whereas in Egypt 60 lb. is an 

 average. The difference is explained by 

 the larger size of Upland cotton bolls, 

 which are more easily picked than 

 Egyptian. Americans endorse tnia 



statement, as experimental plots of 

 Egyptian cotton cost the Agricultural 

 Department 2s. Id. per 100 lb. more to 

 pick, and even then the pickers com- 

 plained about the difficulty of pulling 

 the fibre from the bolls. 



The average value of Egyptian cotton 

 is 8|d. per lb., and supposing, for the 

 sake of comparison, it was made into 500 

 lb. bales, these would have a gross value 

 £17 14s, 2d. ; therefore the picking re- 

 presents 13 per cent, of the gross value, 

 instead of 22 per cent, as is the case 

 with American Upland. 



There is a more marked difference in 

 many of the other operations on the 

 farm, as the American negro receives 

 from 4s. 2d. to 8s. 4d. daily, and the 

 Egyptian fellah only from lOd. to Is. 5d. 

 The Egyptian fellah is the superior 

 worker, being more persevering and 

 industrious. 



Cotton Seed.— At the present time 

 cotton seed is in great demand, and 

 finds a ready market at the ginneries, 

 which are principally worked by oil- 

 millers. Many of the farmers exchange 

 their cotton seed for cotton meal, as 

 the meal is more readily available as a 

 manure. Tlie usual exchange iu the 

 South is 2,000 lb. (American ton) of seed 

 for 1,200 lb. of meal ; others sell the 

 seed at an average of £3 2s. 6d. per 

 American ton. Cattle are scarce in the 

 cotton belt on the east of the Mississippi, 

 but are plentiful in Texas and the west, 

 where large areas are still devoted to 

 cattle-ranching. The cotton farmer 

 never thinks of fattening cattle, but 

 many of the oil and ginning firms are 

 fully alive to the profit in cattle-fatten- 

 ing, and it is a common sight in the 

 west to see the mills surrounded with 

 yards where cattle are fattened ex- 

 clusively on a mixture of cotton meal 

 and hulls. Hulls are sometimes pur- 

 chased as horse-food at £l 0s. lOd. per 

 ton. 



The cotton belt would yield a much 

 larger cotton crop if there was more 

 mixed farming to supply organic man» 

 ure to the land. The exclusive use of 

 artificial manures cannot result in the 

 same fine physical soil conditions as is 

 produced by the application of organic 

 manures. 



II, Long-stapled, 

 It is only within the last few years 

 that long-stapled Upland cottons have 

 bem cultivated. The crop is almost 

 exclusively grown in the valley of the 

 Mississippi, on the rich river bottom 

 lauds. The Mississippi valley is the 

 richest part of the cotton belt, and 

 large yields are obtained witliQWt 



