Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/412

408 more remarkable. Beginning with 126,512 bales in 1830, the consumption amounted to 295,193 in 1840, 613,498 in 1850, 978,043 in 1860, and 1,201,127 in 1873. According to the United States census, 288,558,000 lbs. of cotton were consumed in American mills in 1850, 422,704,975 in 1860, and 398,308,257 in 1870. The statistics of the production and consumption of cotton in the United States and the exports therefrom are by no means uniform. They are generally prepared under the auspices of commercial organizations, or by journals devoted to commerce, from a careful comparison of the exports, receipts, and stock on hand at the various ports where the staple finds an outlet, and estimates of the amount consumed in the interior. The results, therefore, will naturally vary for the same periods, and can be only approximately correct. There is also a lack of uniformity in the weight of bales, which renders it impossible to fix an accurate average for an extended period. The following table is believed to possess as high a degree of accuracy as can be attained:

This table was compiled by B. F. Nourse of Boston, a high authority on matters pertaining to the production and manufacture of cotton, and has been extended from the table presented by him in the report on cotton as United States commissioner to the Paris exposition of 1867. The prices are for middling upland. It includes the production of sea island cotton, which during recent years has been as follows:

Of the total crop of this staple in 1873, 13,156 bales were produced in South Carolina, 10,764 in Florida, 1,269 in Georgia, and 1,100 in Texas. Prior to 1825 no full and trustworthy statistics of the production and exports of cotton were collected; but the following statement exhibits the general growth of this industry during the first quarter of the century:

The points from which the exports of cotton to foreign ports have been made are indicated in the following statement, the years ending Aug. 31:

The exports for the year 1872-'3 were shipped to the following ports: