Cotton and the Cotton Trade and Manufacture [pp. 250-256]

254 COTTON AND THE COTTON TRADE AND MANUFACTURE.
2,200,000 bales of the same weight, at 141 cents. You must not understand it as my
opinion that you will get such prices. I scarcely hope for such, but I present them to
show how the account stands. I know that after this year there must arise in the aggregate an enormous sum of surplus money among the cotton planters, and I have
ventured these remarks that they may begin to adopt measures for its employment,
which will do the whole country good, and tend rather to increase their wealth and enhance prices than to reduce them to nothing again.
ESTIMATED CROP AND P'RICES, 1847-48.
Were I asked if prices would be pretty good next season, I should answer yes.
Were our crop to reach 2,200,000 bales,- I should say a range of from 10 to 12i cents
might be expected. If you make less you may get more, provided no false estimates
of the crop are got up, such as some parties in Savannah made and promulgated, making the past crop 2,175,000. To these estimates, and some made in Charleston, I attribute the cause of a large portion of the best cotton of the Atlantic States being early hurried to market, which was bought up at 7i a 9 cents. This, shipped to Liverpool, has
had a serious influence on that market in prices, and from which I do not think they
have fully recovered.
THE COTTON GIN.
From Professor Olmsted's able Memoir of Eli Whitney which has lately come
into our possession, we extract a remarkable passage.
The pecuniary advantage of this invention to the United States is by no means fully
presented by an exhibition of the value of the exports of cotton (amounting to more
than $1,400,000,000 in the last forty-three years), nor by the immense proportion of the
means which it has furnished this country to meet the enormous debts continually incurred for imports from Britain and the European continent-COTTON having for many
years constituted one-half, three-fifths, or seven-tenths of the value of the exports of
the Union. But it was the introduction of the cotton-gin which first gavea high value
and permanent market to the public lands in the South-west. The rapid settlement
and improvement of almost the entire States of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, is mainly due to the enlarged production of cotton, consequent upon the
invention of Whitney. The States of Georgia and Tennessee have also been largely
benefited by the same means, in the disposal of their domain, a vast portion of which
must have remained unoccupied and valueless but for the immense increase of facilities for the preparation of cotton for the market. In the three States of Alabamna, Mississippi, and Louisiana, the sales of the public lands of the general government amounted to 18,099.505 acres, during the eleven years, ending on the 30th of June, 1844-yielding to the National Treasury more than $30,000,000. The sales of upland cotton lands
by the United States land-offices, have amounted to many tens of millions of acres;
and none have been sold at a lower rate than $1 25 an acre-a large proportion at a
higher rate.
It is to be remarked, finally, that the cotton-gins now in use throughout the whole
South, are truly the original invention of Whitney-that no improvement or successful
variation of the essential parts has yet been effected. The actual characteristics of the
machine (the cylinder and brush), the sole real instruments by which the seed is removed and the cotton cleaned, REMAIN, in cotton-gins of even the most recent manufacture, PRECISELY AS WHITNEY LEFT THEM. The principle has not been altered since
the first cotton-gin was put in motion by the inventor, though great improvements have
been made in the application and direction of the moving forces, in the employment of
steam-power, in the running-gear, and other incidentals. Every one of the various
cotton-gins in use, under the names of different makers, contains the essentials of Whitney's patent, without material change or addition. The brush and the cylinder remain,
like Fulton's paddle-wheel, unchanged in form and necessity, however vast the improvemnents in the machinery that causes the motion.
ANALYSIS OF THE COTTON PLANT.
At the Farmers' Club of New York, the Hon. Dixon H. Lewis, of Alabama,
remarked that the seed of the cotton made rather more than, of the plant, and
every 1200 lbs. gives 350 clean cotton. "The Club, in accordance with his suggestion, resolved upon having prepared a colnplete and perfect analysis of the stalk,
boll, fibre and seed of the cotton plant." The analysis hitherto made by Dr.
Shepard, extended only to the wool and seed. The results as we have them are:
one hundred parts cotton wool lost 86.09 parts in a platina crucible, leaving a
charred residuum,' which on being ignited under a muffle until every part of the
carbon was consumed, lost 12.985 and left an almost purely white ash whose
weight was 0.9247. Of this ash about 44 per cent. was found soluble in water.
* Mr. Henry estimates it at 2,150,000 as the very highest limit.