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is known. Among the most important diseases due to physiological causes are those known as the mosaic disease or yellow leaf-blight, and the shedding of bolls. In the first, small areas of the leaves become yellow, giving to the leaf a peculiar checkered appearance. Later these areas turn brown and dry up, leaving the leaf in a more or less ragged condition. At this stage the disease is usually referred to as the black rust. Heavy applications of kainit or similar fertilizer are said to correct this evil. The shedding of the bolls, or their drying up while still attached to the plant, is often a serious trouble. Extreme dry or wet weather causes this disease by interfering with the proper supply of moisture and nutriment furnished the plant through its roots. Among the diseases due to parasitic fungi a few of the most serious and widely distributed may be mentioned. Damping off, soreshin, or seedling rot is caused by Pythium debaryanum and a number of other fungi. They attack the young plants at or near the surface of the ground, producing ulcer-like spots, and later rot the plant off. The sunken, ulcer-like spots can be readily seen on the affected stems. Another common disease is anthracnose, due to Colletotrichum gossypii. It is a widely distributed fungus that attacks the bolls, stems, and leaves. Upon the bolls small reddish spots appear which later become black. The centre then becomes gray or pink and the spots enlarge in a concentric manner with well-marked zones of color. The boll is killed outright or has its development checked so that the lint is worthless. Upon the stems the fungus is somewhat similar in its behavior, although the spots are not quite so definitely marked. Upon the leaves the disease is not very well characterized. A root-rot is very destructive in some places. Its behavior is so marked as to need no description. It is due to a rather widely distributed fungus that has been called Ozonium auricomum. It attacks a number of plants in addition to cotton. Rotation of crops is about the only method of relief known. A leaf-blight (Sphærella gossypina) and a mildew (Ramularia areola) are common diseases in the cotton-field, but they seldom occasion much injury. The most serious fungous disease to which the cotton-plant is subject is the wilt disease, or Frenching, as it is commonly known. It makes its appearance usually in May, when the plants are six or eight inches high. The plants are dwarfed, have an unhealthy appearance, the leaves turn yellow between the veins and their margins dry up. Sometimes plants wilt and die at once, while at other times the progress of the disease is slower and the plant may partly recover. A plant attacked by this disease will show a brownish stained color in the wood when cut across. The cause of the trouble is a fungus recently described as Neocosmospora vasinfecta, and the same or a closely related form occurs on the okra and watermelon. Some varieties and individual plants seem less liable to this disease, which attacks the plants through the soil, and it is thought the means for overcoming this trouble lies in resistant plants. This disease, as well as some others, is very much complicated by the presence in the roots of the cotton of nematodes (Heterodera radicicola), minute worms that enter the roots of cotton and a number of other plants, causing a large number of galls to be formed. The plant is injured by the nourish

ment taken from other parts of the plant to. make the galls. This weakens the plant so it is more liable to fungous attack. When nematodes occur in abundance in the field no entirely efficient means of eradication is known as yet.

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION. The oldest known cotton-producing country is India, where for thirty centuries the plant has been grown and its fibre manufactured. For four hundred years before the Christian Era cotton was well known in what was then the civilized world, the writings of the Greeks and Egyptians plainly indicating the knowledge of the value of this fibre. Columbus found it in the Western world, although not so extensively cultivated as in the East; but during the past fifty years its culture here has distanced in quantity and in quality the produce of the Old World. Down to 1800 the cotton-consumers of Europe depended upon the Indies and the Levant for their raw material; but by 1860, so far had the inventive genius, the superior farming, and the greater energy of the planter of our Southern States pushed the production of the fibre, that they furnished the greater part of the cotton used by Great Britain and the Continent of Europe. From 1858 to 1860 America furnished 79 per cent. of the cotton imported into Great Britain. During our Civil War this dropped to 3% per cent., rising to 58 per cent. in 1871, and amounting to 80 per cent. in 1900. During the Civil War, when the price of cotton was abnormally high, attempts were made to grow cotton in many countries. The industry flourished there for a while, but it has ceased to be profitable in Europe, Australia, etc. Russia in her Asiatic possessions has developed cotton-growing greatly in recent years, so that the imports into the empire have fallen off 50 per cent. in the past decade. COTTON PRODUCTION OF THE WORLD. This is difficult to more than approximate, as a large proportion and amount consumed is produced in uncivilized or in semi-civilized countries, where no accurate record is kept; and in many countries and districts absolutely no data are available-as in China, where soil and climate are favorable and the clothing of the population is largely of cotton, yet the extent of its cultivation is a close secret; and in some parts of India, where the production can be estimated only by the amount in sight and the known or assumed requirements for dress. The amount produced in the vast unknown continent of Africa is even more of a mystery, although native cottons form there a large proportion of the dress.

The commercial crop for the year 1902-3 was 12,430,000 bales of 500 pounds each. This includes the total crop of the United States and the known imports into Europe and America from other cotton-producing countries. The product was divided as follows: United States, 10,380,000 bales; Egypt, 1,243,000 bales; India, China, etc., 604,000; Brazil, 146,000 bales; Peru, West Indies, etc., 35,000; and Turkey, Asia Minor, etc., 22,000. The domestic consumption in those countries from which only the exportations are given would add very materially to the total production of the world. India leads in the domestic consumption of cotton among those countries not reporting, and in 1900 about 1,100,000 bales were consumed by the local mills. According to Latham, Alexander & Co., the total production for 1904-5 was: United States, 13,420,440

bales; East Indies, etc., 2,960,000 bales; Egypt,
1,187,000 bales; Brazil, etc., 215,000 bales, or a
total of 17,782,440 bales of 500 pounds each.
COTTON IN THE UNITED STATES. The first au-
thentic record of cotton cultivation in the United
States was at Jamestown, Va., in 1607. The first
exportation was in 1747, when eight bags were
sent to England, the first shipment of any impor-
tance 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,-
TABLE I.-COTTON GROWN IN THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEARS 1869, 1879, 1889, AND 1899 (IN BALES)

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.

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Calculated on basis of 500-lb. bales.

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 54d. (say 112 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 7%d. (144 cents), but in a few months it reached 1s. 1d. (26 cents). In 1890 it ranged from 5 9-16d. to 64 d. in Liverpool, from 104 cents to 1234 cents in New York; while in 1899 the range of price in New York was from 5 5-16 cents to 6% cents, with an average of about 6 cents per pound.

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 terri574,328 tory, the production reaches 4,250,940 bales, or 831,378 45 per cent. of the whole crop."

The acreage and yield of cotton for the season of 1903-4, as reported by the United States Department of Agriculture, was as follows:

North Carolina

South Carolina.

Georgia

STATE

Commercial Bales

1,305,991

49,333 988,854

[blocks in formation]

4,048,912

268,666

3,608,049

3,327,960

1,424,868

1,642,463

7,801,578

2,538,508

Arkansas

1,925,191

Tennessee

All others

783,196 1,137,750

Total.

Florida

Alabama.

Mississippi.

Louisiana

Texas

The value of the exports of cotton from the United States between the years 1895-99 aver828,185 aged $213,378,243 a year. The United Kingdom took 49 per cent.; Germany, 22 per cent.; France, 754,078 11 per cent.; Italy, 5.2 per cent.; Spain, 3.8 per cent.; Belgium, 1.8 per cent.; Japan, 1.7 28,016,893 10,050,953 per cent.; Russia, 1.6 per cent.; and Canada,

251,115

504,315

1.5 per cent.

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principal producing regions. In Tennessee the
cost of the 1880 crop was from 3.5 to 10 cents
per pound, that of 1893 averaged 7 cents. The
average production for the United States in 1900
was about 200 pounds per acre.
MANUFACTURE. The process of transforming
cotton from its raw condition after picking into
the thread or cloth that is such an essential of
daily life is one which involves many different
operations. It must first be cleaned to remove
sand, dust, and other foreign substances. It then
contains about two-thirds of its weight in seeds,
which must be removed.

Great

Cotton-Ginning.-Before Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin, the removal of the seeds by hand was so difficult a task that very little cotton was raised. It would take one person two years to turn out an average bale of cotton, three to fifteen of which are produced by one machine in one day. Before the Civil War the gins were run chiefly by mule-power, which, when operated in connection with slave labor, was cheaper than steam. Whitney's cotton-gin, known as the saw gin, may be briefly described as a series of circular saws with fine teeth, revolving with an arc of their circumference projecting through a guide into a receptacle for seed cotton. These saws tear the lint from the seed and carry it through the guide. It is removed from the saws by a brush and carried to a condenser. care must be exercised not to injure the cotton (1) by having the saws too close to the bars of the grate, so as to rub; (2) by having them revolve too fast; or (3) by having the teeth too sharp. See Brooks, Cotton (New York, 1898). The roller gin is growing in favor among cottonproducers, especially for the long-staple or Sea Island cotton, and in the United States and Egypt all long-staple cotton is ginned in this way. It removes the seed with only one-fifth the rapidity of the saw gin, but it does not injure the fibre. In a primitive form it has been used in Egypt and India for many centuries. It consists of two rollers, revolving in opposite directions, between which the cotton is passed and the smooth, hard seeds thrown off. Both the saw gin and roller gin have been much modified and their effectiveness increased by successive improvements.

COST OF PRODUCTION. A great many estimates have been published as to the cost of production of a crop of cotton. None of these are accurate or of value, as so many factors must be considered, such as different soils, methods of cultivation, season, etc. According to Hammond, the cost of producing Sea Island cotton in 1880 ranged in South Carolina from 15 to 21 cents a pound; in Georgia, 50 cents per pound of lint. The cost of producing upland cotton varied within wide limits. In North Carolina in 1880 it ranged from 6.2 cents in the Piedmont region to 7.3 cents in the Pine levels. In 1892 the range was from 3.5 to 6.6 cents. The cost in South Carolina in 1880 ranged from 6.91 to 8 cents; in 1892 it was 6.6 cents for the Pine Hills region; in 1893, from 5 to 14 cents dependent upon the nature of the soil. In Georgia the crop of 1880 was estimated at from 3 to 6 cents for the Pine Hills region and 8 to 10 cents in other regions; the crop of 1892 averaged 7.5 cents per pound; that of 1893, 6.75 cents. In Alabama, in 1880, the crop cost from 3 to 8 cents per pound; in 1892, from 4.5 to 7.75 cents; and in 1893 it averaged 8 cents. In Mississippi the cost varied from 4 to 11 cents in 1880, and from 4 to 8.4 cents in 1893, dependent upon the producing region. In Louisiana the cost varied in 1880 between 6.8 and 7.4 cents, and in 1893 between 4.9 and 7 cents. In Arkansas in 1880 the range was from 6.2 to 7 cents per pound; in 1893 from 4 to 7 cents. In 1880 the Texas crop cost from 3 to 9 cents per pound, In Bulletin No. 58, on Cotton-Ginning, Twelfth with averages of from 4.5 to 6.5 cents in the United States Census, Daniel C. Roper divides TABLE II.-Cotton-GINNERIES IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1899 (FROM TWELFTH UNITED STATES CENSUS)

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