Practical Results of Southern Manufactures [pp. 777-791]

782 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF SOUTHERN MANUFACTURES.
The fifth is to embark in such an enterprise without sufficient capital.
The neglect of any one of these mnay lead to serious embarrassments, while the last, seemingly a matter which could
easily be corrected and overcome, is a prolific source of
failure, and has led to more ruinous disasters than any other
thing.
In getting up a manufacturing company, the first thing to
be considered, after procuring an ample capital, is what kind
of goods is to be made. In deciding this point, no attention
should be paid to the prevailing idea at the south, that an
effort should be made to supply the home demand, and make
a little of everything. Some will recommend osnaburgs,
which are in the minds of everybody-others will suggest
coarse stripes-others again, denims, drills for bags-while
cotton yarn will be advised by another-cotton ropes will be
recommended by others again, as a means of saving waste
cotton. I would say, work up your waste as closely as you
can into your cloth, and sell the balance to the paper-makers.
If you start out to make cloth, don't attempt to put up yarn,
for in a well organized factory it can be put into cloth for a
half cent a pound more than the cost of reeling and bundling
yarn. The cloth is marketable everywhere, and the yarn is
not.
If you put up a large mill, do not attempt to make osnaburgs, for that branch of manufacturing is already overdone
at the south. I could put up a mill of 12,000 spindles and
500 looms to run on osnaburgs, and make the goods so cheap
as to drive every mill at the south out of that branch of business, and stop the only mill at the north which is now making
them. One factory of' 500 looms would supply all the
southern demand fbr that article. The business is already
crowded by southern competition, as I can readily show, by
stating the fact that osnaburgs have been selling in Charleston,
for a long time past, at from sixteen to seventeen cents per
pound, while the Graniteville shirtings and sheetings brought
from twenty-three to twenty-four cents a pound. There is
not half a cent a pound difference in the cost of manufacturing, all things being equal. There is a demand of from
500 to 1,000 bales of shirtings, sheetings, or drills, for one of
osnaburgs. The whole world consumes the former, while
the southern States only the latter. There is only one fac ory,
with 200 looms, making osnaburgs in all New England, while
the looms which are working on goods, which assimilate to
the Graniteville's, will amount to nearly as many thousands.