Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/772

UNITED STATES. the adaptability of the prairie soils to wheat culture, resulted in a more rapid increase in the acreage devoted to it than was true of corn. . While the value of the cotton crop is not so great as is that of wheat, the receipts from its sales and especially from its exportation are much greater. (See paragraph on Commerce.)

There is no other field product which gives employment to so large a number of people. The total area devoted to cotton in the United States increased from 14,480,019 acres in the census year 1880, to 20,175,270 in 1890, and 24,275,101 acres in 1900, the production in bales for those years being respectively 5,755,359, 7,472,511, and 9,534,707. (For detailed tables and map see .) Through the reduction of the high prices prevailing after the war, the cultivation of cotton is being abandoned almost entirely in the border States. Its area of production is in the region southeast of the Appalachian Mountains, beginning in the north at the southern tier of counties in Virginia, and including over two-thirds of North Carolina and nearly all South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, then the region extending north in the Mississippi Valley, embracing western Tennessee, southern Arkansas, Indian Territory, Oklahoma, and the region southward to the Gulf. Florida and the coast plains of the States mentioned are not so favorable for its production as the region farther inland. In recent years there has been a remarkable development of cotton-growing in Texas, Indian Territory, and Oklahoma. Texas now yields twice the amount produced by any other State. Its production in that region, however, has suffered severely from the ravages of the boll-weevil. In 1900 43.80 per cent. of the crop was produced west of the Mississippi River. From the time of the introduction of the cotton gin to the time of the Civil War, the cultivation of cotton was one of the most rapidly developing industries of the United States, being favored by the high prices obtained for its products and the advantages which water transportation afforded in the South to place it upon the market. The most rapidly developing period was 1850-60, when the area devoted to cotton in the ten principal States increased 100 per cent. It was during this period that cotton first asserted its supremacy in the South. The area devoted to corn increased only 17 per cent. in the same period. The construction of railroads and the development of corn-raising in the North Central States made possible the importation of that product, and the cotton-grower believed it more profitable to import his corn and devote his soil to cotton. While corn was well in advance of cotton in acreage at the outbreak of the Civil War, the still higher prices of cotton prevailing after the war turned attention more than ever to it, and subsequent to 1870 the importation of corn became general and the acreage of its cultivation in the cotton States fell below the acreage of cotton. A number of other factors that assisted in strengthening the domination of cotton were operative after the war. The war left Southern planters without capital. In order to secure supplies of food, farm equipments, etc., of the merchant, the farmer was obliged to place his land and his crop under mortgage to the merchant. Cotton was a cash crop, being easily marketed, and was the most acceptable to the merchant, who insisted upon a large production

of it in order to make himself safe in case of a partial crop product. Nor did the farmer on his part care to take the risk of experimenting with new or mixed systems of farming. This condition became greatly emphasized by the presence of a large ex-slave population. The negro preferred to become a tenant-cultivator, and as such has become the special prey of the crop-mortgage system. His obligations and his inclinations both tended to restrict him to cotton. Thus, although the price of cotton fell between 1875 and 1900 more tlian the price of any other crop, rendering its production unprofitable, the economic system which had fastened itself upon the South made it impossible to check cotton cultivation. A vigorously conducted agitation, participated in by the Cotton Trust and by the planters themselves, to reduce the cotton-growing area, had but little result. The utilization of the cotton seed has tended in a measure to offset the consequences of the disastrous fall in the price of the fibre. In 1899 the cotton-seed product amounted to 4,566,100 tons, valued at $46,950,575. The development of manufacturing in the South has tended to enlarge the local markets for all farm products. In some sections this demand for a greater diversity of crops has tended to diminish the dependence upon cotton and the mortgage-holder. But in the greater part of the cotton area proper the tyranny of cotton has scarcely been weakened.

. The only other crop which is grown on a scale comparable with the foregoing crops is oats. The acreage of oats is indeed greater than that of cotton, but the value is much less. It belongs in the group with corn and hay in that it is produced almost wholly for consumption on the farm. More hardy than corn, it is grown as a stock-food substitute for it in the States where corn does not grow well, namely the northern tier of States. In New York, Wisconsin, and some other commonwealths, oats has the largest area of any cereal. In a number of other States it ranks second, including the two largest oats-growing States, Illinois and Iowa, in each of which oats is twice as extensively grown as is wheat. The greatest growth of the industry occurred in the decade 1880-90, when the acreage increased from 16,144,393 to 28,320,677. This increase was associated with the development of the Northern States and the decline of wheat in the region already under cultivation. In New England, the Southern States, and the Far West the crop did not figure prominently. The United States produces less than two-thirds the oats products of the world. . Although rice was introduced as early as 1700 and has been grown ever since, it was not until near the year 1900 that its cultivation began to assume large proportions. For 150 years its cultivation was confined mainly to the delta lands and tidal rivers of the Carolinas and Georgia, where it was cultivated by the aid of irrigation. It was for a long time the only crop in the United States to which irrigation was applied. South Carolina ranked first in its production until 1880. A new epoch in rice cultivation began in 1897-98, when it was successfully grown by the aid of irrigation in the coastal prairie lands of southwestern Louisiana. The cultivation of rice in that region developed with remarkable rapidity and the production of the