states]
AGRICULTURE
the people, and its handling for domestic and foreign markets employs the capital or labour of several millions more. Cotton is limited by climatic conditions to the States south of latitude 37° IST. The essential features of the climate in this section are the long warm season and the peculiar distribution of the rainfall. Cotton is a sun plant. Fluctuations in yield per acre in a given place are less in the case of cotton than in any other product of the soil; in other words, a certain amount of sunlight produces a certain amount of cotton. This may be due to the greater uniformity of all the climatic conditions obtaining in the cotton belt; but the determining condition as between different sections is the amount of light and heat distributed over the required number of months. This period is ordinarily measured by the date of the last killing frost in the spring and of the earliest frost in the fall. Cotton-picking may be extended far into the winter, but the first killing frost stops the active growth of the plant, and by killing the blossoms and young bolls puts an end to the production of cotton for that season. Cotton requires for its development from six to seven months of favourable growing weather. It thrives in a warm atmosphere, even in a very hot one, provided it is moist and the transpiration does not overtax the leaves. The plant requires, however, an abundant supply of moisture during the growing stage. A rainfall increasing from the spring to the middle of summer and then decreasing to autumn is probably the most favourable condition for the production of this crop. These are exactly the conditions that prevail in the cotton States. Cotton grows more or less successfully on nearly all kinds of soil within this climatic belt. Light sandy soils, loams, heavy clays, and sandy “ bottom lands ” will all grow it, though not with equal success. Sandy uplands produce a short stalk, which bears fairly well. Clay and bottom lands grow a plant of large size, yielding less lint in proportion. The best soils for cotton are the medium grades of loam. The cotton soil should be of a quality to maintain very uniform conditions of moisture. Sudden variations in the amount of water supplied injure the plant decidedly. A sandy soil does not retain water; a clay soil maintains too much moisture and causes the plant to take on too rank a growth. The best soil for cotton, therefore, is a deep, well-drained loam. Cotton is successfully grown in the south on nearly all kinds of soils, from the piny ridge soils of North Carolina to the rich bottom soils on the Mississippi. The cotton-growing States include those on the Atlantic slope from North Carolina to Florida and on the gulf from Florida to New Mexico; also the south-western portion of Tennessee, the State of Arkansas, and a portion of Oklahoma. A little cotton has also been grown in Utah and California. The cotton-growing region measures over 550,000 square miles, which is about one-fourth of the total, or one-third of the settled, area of the United States. In 1890 over 50 per cent, of this was in farms, and over 20 per cent, was improved, but only about 5 per cent, of the total area, or one-tenth of the area in farms, and one-fourth of the area of improved land, is annually cultivated in cotton. Since the present methods of cultivation require about two and one-half acres to produce one 400-pound bale, the area now in farms in this section would, if all cultivated in cotton, produce over 80,000,000 bales. So far, therefore, as climatic conditions are concerned, the Southern States could produce eight times as much cotton as they have ever done without taking in any more land. The question of labour required for the production of a cotton crop is a serious one. Expert estimates place the
219 amount of human labour at about 54 per cent, of the whole expense of growing the crop. This is a much higher ratio of the cost of labour than is found in most other industries. It exceeds the cost of labour Labourin corn, and wheat-growing, and also in manufacturing industries. In the cotton mills reporting to the Department of Labour the average cost of labour employed is only about 28 per cent. In 1880 the people in the cotton belt produced an average of 231 pounds of cotton per caput; in 1890 this had been increased to 254; and in the State of Mississippi, where conditions are most favourable, the production per caput was 427 pounds in 1889. With their present population, and under present conditions, the Southern States yield 300 pounds per caput. The total population of the cotton States may be fairly placed at 15,000,000. This population could easily produce a far larger crop than it does now, for there is great room for improvement in methods of cultivation and fertilization. There are three classes of farmers engaged in cotton cultivation, namely, owners of the land, renters who pay money rental, and share croppers. In the ten principal cotton States, according to the census of 1890, there were 57 per cent, of the first class, 15 per cent, of the second, and 28 per cent, of the third. The result of a careful inquiry as to the cost of producing cotton in the United States, made in 1897 by the Department of Agriculture, gives an average cost per acre on upland farms of $15.42 and the average total return of cotton fibre and seed $19.03, the average net profit being $3.61. The average yield is 255‘6 pounds of lint and 16 pounds of seed per acre, and the average price of lint 6*7 cents per pound and of seed 1D9 cents per bushel. The average cost of picking one hundred pounds of cotton is 44 cents and the average cost of producing lint cotton in all the States and territories is 5*27 cents per pound. Eighty per cent, of the cotton plantations reporting in 1896 showed a profit and 20 per cent, a loss. Figure 1 shows in a graphic manner the record of cotton production in the United ^°fuctIon States every tenth year from 1790 to 1890, Exports. and also for the year 1895; the portion of each crop consumed at home (divided between north and south), and the portion exported. A cotton crop of 9,000,000 bales, such as that of 1899, represents at 7 cents a pound a money value of $300,000,000. Of this amount, 70 per cent, is exported, bringing into the country about $210,000,000. Basing the calculation on the average price of each year, the cotton crops in America for the last one hundred years have been worth $15,000,000,000. During the hundred years about 82,000,000,000 pounds have been exported, representing a value of $11,000,000,000. In 1790 Great Britain received from America something less than one six-hundredth part of her total cotton imports, but only fifty years later she received from the Southern States four-fifths of all the cotton she used; and the South has always maintained and still maintains its position in relation to the cotton consumption of the world. It has never supplied less than 80 per cent, of the cotton used by Great Britain and the United States together, and in 1892 the Southern cotton formed 82 per cent, of the total amount consumed in these two countries. In the next chart (Fig. 2) an attempt is made to present in somewhat greater detail the chief facts with regard to area, production, exports, and values of the cotton crop during the ten years from 1886 to 1896. It shows that an average area of a little less than 20,000,000 acres, cultivated each year, has produced in these ten years a total of over 36,000,000,000 pounds, valued at more than $3,000,000,000. Of the total production of
