Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/564

COTTON. bales; East Indies, etc., 1,562,000 bales; Egypt, 1,228,000 bales; Brazil, etc., 250,000 bales, or a total of 12,177,000 bales of 500 pounds each. . The first authentic record of cotton cultivation in the United States was at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. Sea Island cotton was introduced from the West Indies in 1786. The first exportation was in 1747, when eight bags were sent to England, the first shipment of any importance being 2000 pounds in 1770. In 1791, 189,316 pounds were exported; Whitney's invention of the saw gin in 1793 raised this amount to 17,789,803 pounds by 1800. The production reached 2,160,000,000 pounds in 1860, and amounted to 4,506,000,000 pounds in 1895 (9,467,000 bales reckoned at 484 lbs. net each). Cheapening the processes of cultivation and cleaning, and increase of acreage, have so lowered the cost of the fibre that while the average price in Liverpool was 1s. 6d. (say 36 cents) per pound in 1793, it was 5¾d. (say 11½ cents) in 1851; averaging 7d. (14 cents) for the five years ending 1861. In 1867 there was a decline from the high prices consequent upon the Civil War to 7⅜d. (14¾ cents), but in a few months it reached 1s. 1d. (26 cents). In 1890 it ranged from 5 9-16d. to 6¾d. in Liverpool, from 10¼ cents to 12¾ cents in New York; while in 1899 the range of price in New York was from 5 5-16 cents to 6⅝ cents, with an average of about 6 cents per pound, the 1900 values being considerably higher.

The acreage in cotton of the ten cotton-growing States for the season of 1899-1900 was as follows:

The accompanying Table No. 1, taken from Bulletin No. 58, census of 1900, gives the cotton crop in the United States by States, according to censuses of 1870, 1880, 1890, and 1900, for the crops of the preceding year. The bale measurement of 1890 was 477 pounds; in 1880 it was 433 pounds; in 1870 it was 440 pounds. It is interesting to note the States in which cotton has at some time been cultivated. The Bulletin states that “early settlers north of the Ohio River planted cotton for domestic uses between 1749 and 1780. The census for 1860 gave for Illinois 1482 bales, or 659,490 pounds of cotton. Stimulated by the high prices following the Civil War, the cultivation of cotton was conducted to a limited extent in California, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Utah, and West Virginia. With the coming of low prices, cotton culture gradually disappeared from those sections not peculiarly adapted to it, and censuses after 1870 credited none to California, Illinois, Indiana, Nevada, Utah, or West Virginia. Natural selection continues to eliminate the industry from sections less favored by climatic conditions. To illustrate: Kentucky is credited by the censuses of 1880 and 1890 with 1367 and 873 bales respectively, but the census of 1900 finds in this State only 84 commercial bales. The loss in those States lying along the northern border of the cotton belt is more than offset by the increase found in the territory west and southwest of the Mississippi River. According to the Eleventh Census 2,872,524 bales, or 38 per cent. of the entire American crop of 1889, was grown in that region, while in the census of 1900, in the same territory, the production reaches 4,250,940 bales, or 45 per cent. of the whole crop.”

The value of the exports of cotton from the United States between the years 1895-99 averaged $213,378,243 a year. The United Kingdom took 49 per cent.; Germany, 22 per cent.; France, 11 per. cent.; Italy, 5.2 per cent.: Spain, 3.8 per cent.; Belgium, 1.8 per cent.; Japan, 1.7 per cent.; Russia, 1.6 per cent.; and Canada, 1.5 per cent.