[Illustration: GUARANTY TRUST CO'S COTTON PRICE CHART. _Spot Prices, New York, Middling Uplands_]

The Fabric of Civilization

A Short Surveyof the Cotton Industry in theUnited States

Guaranty Trust Company of New York140 Broadway

FIFTH AVENUE OFFICE MADISON AVENUE OFFICEFifth Avenue and 43rd Street Madison Avenue and 60th Street

 LONDON OFFICES LIVERPOOL OFFICE 32 Lombard Street, E. C. 27 Cotton Exchange Buildings 5 Lower Grosvenor Pl. , S. W. 

PARIS OFFICE HAVRE OFFICE BRUSSELS OFFICE1 and 3 Rue des Italiens 122 Boulevard Strasbourg 158 Rue Royale

COPYRIGHT, 1919

GUARANTY TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK

 The cotton industry touches the lives of the vast majority of the peoples of the earth. The ensuing survey does not pretend to cover the field in all its diversity. It aims to give, in brief compass, such general facts concerning the industry in the United States as may enable the reader quickly to familiarize himself with its broader outlines. 

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I The Importance and Power of Cotton 5 II Where Cotton is Grown and Spun and Why 10 III The Raw Cotton Market 17 IV The Cloth Market 27 V Financing Cotton and Cotton Cloth 33 VI American Cloth in Foreign Markets 38 VII Some of the Grower's Problems 41 VIII In the Cotton Mill 45 IX The Finishing Operations 57

The Fabric of Civilization

CHAPTER I

The Importance and Power of Cotton

Cotton is the fabric of civilization. It has built up peoples, and hasriven them apart. It has brought to the world vast and permanent wealth. It has enlisted the vision of statesmen, the genius of inventors, thecourage of pioneers, the forcefulness of manufacturers, the initiative ofmerchants and shipbuilders, and the patient toil of many millions. 

A whole library could be written on the economic aspects of cotton alone. It could be told in detail, how and why the domination of the field ofits manufacture passed from India to Spain, to Holland, and finally toEngland, which now shares it chiefly with the United States. Theinterdependence of nations which it has brought about has been thesubject of numerous books and articles. 

Genius that ServedThe World's Need

Nor is the history of the inventions which have made possible to-day'sgreat production of cotton fabrics less impressive. From the unnamedHindu genius of pre-Alexandrian days, through Arkwright and Eli Whitney, down to Jacquard and Northrop, the tale of cotton manufacture is a seriesof romances and tragedies, any one of which would be a story worthtelling in detail. Yet, here is a work that is by no means finished. Great inventors who will apply their genius to the improvement of cottongrowing and manufacture are still to be born. 

The present purpose, however, is to explain, as briefly as may be, thegrowth of the cotton industry of the United States, in its more importantbranches, and to endeavor, on the basis of recognized authority, toindicate its position in relation to the cotton industries of theremainder of the world. 

America the ChiefSource of Raw Material

For the present, and for the future, as far as that may be seen, theUnited States will have to continue to supply the greater part of theworld's raw cotton. Staples of unusual length and strength have beengrown in some foreign regions, and short and inferior fibers have comefrom still others. But the cotton belt of the Southern States, producingmillions of bales, is the chief source of supply for all the world. 

The following table, taken from "The World's Cotton Crops, 1915, " by J. A. Todd, gives the comparative production of the great cotton-growingareas, for the 1914-1915 season:

 America 16, 500, 000 bales of 500 pounds India 5, 000, 000 " " 500 " Egypt 1, 300, 000 " " 500 " Russia 1, 300, 000 " " 500 " China 4, 000, 000 " " 500 " Others 1, 300, 000 " " 500 " ----------- Total 29, 400, 000 " " 500 "

The American crop is thus approximately fifty-six per cent. Of theworld's total. The other producing countries have shown since thebeginning of the century an interesting, if not a remarkable growth, thatof China being the largest in quantity, and that of Russia, the largestin proportion. The American increase has been larger, absolutely, thanthat of any other region, and there is little indication that it will notcontinue to hold first position. 

English SpinnersDominate World Market

In the manufacture of cotton, Great Britain's supremacy, while not sogreat proportionately as that of America in growing it, is for thepresent not likely to be challenged. The following table of the number ofspindles in the chief manufacturing countries is based on English figurescompiled shortly before the outbreak of the World War. The number ofspindles is the usual basis upon which the size of the industry isjudged. It is not a perfect method, but it has fewer objections than anyother:

 Great Britain 55, 576, 108 United States 30, 579, 000 Germany 10, 920, 426 Russia 8, 950, 000 France 7, 400, 000 India 6, 400, 000 Austria 4, 864, 453 Italy 4, 580, 000 Latin America 3, 100, 000 Japan 2, 250, 000 Spain 2, 200, 000 Belgium 1, 468, 838 Switzerland 1, 398, 062 Scattering 2, 499, 421 ----------- Total Spindles 142, 186, 308

Such figures can be only approximate. The war has brought growth in theUnited States and in Japan, but has certainly reduced the numbers ofspindles in Germany, Austria, and Russia. It is doubtful, moreover, howwell the French industry has been able to maintain itself. But thetabulation is accurate enough to show the relative standing of thevarious countries. There are, as has been indicated, other standards thanthe number of spindles. The United States, through the fact that itspecializes, generally speaking, on the coarser fabrics, uses about5, 000, 000 bales of cotton annually, as compared with Great Britain's4, 000, 000. The British product, however, sells for much more. Thus thevalue of the spindle standard is affirmed. England, then, produces wellin excess of one-third of the cotton cloth of the world; the UnitedStates considerably more than one-fifth of it, with the other countriestrailing far behind, but prospering nevertheless. 

The Individualityof the Cotton Fiber

[Illustration: _The cotton fiber--a highly magnified view, showing thetwist_]

It is a curious ruling of fate which makes the spinning of cotton fiberpossible. There are many other short vegetable fibers, but cotton is theonly one which can profitably be spun into thread. Hemp and flax, itschief vegetable competitors, are both long fibered. The individuality ofthe cotton fiber lies in its shape. Viewed through the microscope, thefiber is seen to be, not a hollow cylinder, but rather a flattenedcylinder, shaped in cross-section something like the figure eight. Butthe chief and valuable characteristic is that the flattened cylinder isnot straight, but twisted. It is this twist which gives its peculiar andoverwhelming importance to cotton, for without this apparently fortuitouscharacteristic, the spinning of cotton, if possible at all, would resultin a much weaker and less durable thread. The twist makes the threads"kink" together when they are spun, and it is this kink which makes forstrength and durability. 

Though the cotton plant seems to be native to South America, SouthernAsia, Africa, and the West Indies, its cultivation, was largely confinedat first to India, and later to India and the British West Indies. At thebeginning of the eighteenth century, the West Indies, because of theirespecial fitness for growing the longer staples were supplying aboutseventy per cent. Of the food of the Lancashire spindles. The UnitedStates having made unsuccessful attempts to produce cotton in the earlydays of the colonies, first became an important producing country towardthe end of the eighteenth century. American Upland cotton, by reason ofits comparatively short staple, and the unevenness of the fibers, as wellas the difficulty of detaching it from the seed, was decidedly inferiorto some other accessible species. The Southern planters who grew it, moreover, found it next to impossible to gin it properly, the primitiveroller gin of the time being unsuited to the task, and the work ofpulling off the fibers by hand being both tedious and expensive. In 1792, the amount exported from the United States was equivalent to only 275bales. 

[Illustration: _Eli Whitney, the schoolmaster inventor of the cottongin_]

The next year, 1793, is the most important in the history of cottongrowing in the United States. In the autumn of 1792, Eli Whitney, a youngMassachusetts man who had just been graduated from Yale College, sailedfrom New York to South Carolina where he intended to teach school. Onshipboard he met the widow of Nathaniel Greene, the Revolutionarygeneral. Mrs. Greene invited the youth to begin his residence in theSouth on her plantation at Mulberry Grove, Georgia. Here one evening, some officers, late of General Greene's command, were discussing thegreat wealth which might come to the South were there a suitable machinefor removing stubborn Upland fiber from its green seed. The story goesthat while the discussion was at its height, Mrs. Greene said:

"Gentlemen, apply to my young friend, Mr. Whitney. He can makeanything. "

Whitney commenced work on the problem. A room was set aside as hisworkshop, and it was not long before he had produced the beginnings ofthe gin. He fixed wire teeth in a board, and found that by pulling thefibers through with his fingers he could leave the tenacious seed behind. He carried this basic idea further by putting the teeth on a cylinder andby providing a rotating brush to clean the fiber from the teeth. 

The changes which followed immediately upon the introduction of thecotton gin were tremendous in scope and almost innumerable. There was atime, before cotton became a staple, when the South led New England inmanufacturing. That time passed almost immediately. Iron works and coalmines were abandoned, and men turned their energies from the culture ofcorn, rice, and indigo largely to the raising of the cotton. 

Expansion inProduction

The following figures, giving production in the equivalent of 500 poundbales for the year at the close of each ten-year period, give some ideaof the tremendous expansion which ensued. 

 _500 Pound _Year_ Bales_ 1790 3, 138 1800 73, 222 1810 177, 824 1820 334, 728 1830 732, 218 1840 1, 347, 640 1850 2, 136, 083 1860 3, 841, 416 1870 4, 024, 527 1880 6, 356, 998 1890 8, 562, 089 1900 10, 123, 027 1910 11, 608, 616 1917 11, 302, 375

By this table it will be seen that the Civil War and the freeing of theslaves held up production only temporarily. In 1914, the banner year, thecrop reached the tremendous total of 16, 134, 930 bales of five hundredpounds each. 

Some little spinning had been done in the seventeenth century, but in1787-88 the first permanent factory, built of brick, and located inBeverly, Massachusetts, on the Bass river, was put into operation by agroup headed by John Cabot and Joshua Fisher. This factory failed tojustify itself economically, chiefly because of the crudeness of itsmachinery. But Samuel Slater, newly come from England with models of theArkwright machinery in his brain, set up a factory in Pawtucket in 1790. From that time forth the growth was steady and sure, if not alwaysextremely rapid. 

The following table, [A] which covers the whole country, relatesparticularly to New England in the years before 1880, because the cottonmanufacturing industry until then was largely concentrated there. Itshows how the manufacturing interests of the country profited by thediscovery that brought wealth to the agricultural South:

 =======+=======+============+=========+=============+============== |_Number| |_Cotton | | | of | _Number | Used | _Number | _Value of _Year_ | Estab-| of | in | of | Product in | lish- | Spindles_ | Million | Employes_ | Dollars_ | ments_| | Pounds_ | | -------+-------+------------+---------+-------------+-------------- 1810 | | 87, 000 | | | 1820 | | 220, 000 | | | 1830 | 795 | 1, 200, 000 | 77. 8 | 62, 177 | $32, 000, 000 1840 | 1240 | 2, 300, 000 | 113. 1 | 72, 119 | 46, 400, 000 1850 | 1094 | 3, 600, 000 | 276. 1 | 92, 286 | 61, 700, 000 1860 | 1091 | 5, 200, 000 | 422. 7 | 122, 028 | 115, 700, 000 1870 | 956 | 7, 100, 000 | 398. 3 | 135, 369 | 177, 500, 000 1880 | 756 | 10, 700, 000 | 750. 3 | 174, 659 | 192, 100, 000 1890 | 905 | 14, 200, 000 | 1, 118. 0 | 218, 876 | 268, 000, 000 1900 | 973 | 19, 000, 000 | 1, 814. 0 | 297, 929 | 332, 800, 000 1910 | 1208 | 27, 400, 000 | 2, 332. 2 | 371, 120 | 616, 500, 000 1918 | | 34, 940, 830 | 3, 278. 2 | | =======+=======+============+=========+=============+==============

 [A] This tabulation includes spinning and weaving establishments only. 

The North, having this growing interest in an industry struggling againstthe experience and ability of the more firmly established English market, sought naturally for the protection given by a high tariff. The South, having definitely dropped manufacturing, pleaded with Congress always fora low tariff, and the right to deal in human chattels. 

There is little need to go further into the rift which began to developalmost immediately. In 1861 the split occurred. The war between theStates caused hardly more suffering than the blockade which cut off thespinners of Manchester from the vegetable wool which supplied them themeans of living. Cotton proved its power and its domination. It was abeneficent monarch, but it brooked no denial of its overlordship. 

Early Exportsto England Heavy

The invention of the Whitney Gin, as we have just said, found the UnitedStates able to use but a small part of the cotton grown. What became ofthe remainder? Obviously, it was exported to provide the means foroperating the English mills. Here is a table which shows how Americancotton left the Southern ports for England and the Continent in thealternate decennial years beginning in 1790, three years before theinvention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney. The figures are exclusive oflinters. 

 _Exports in Equivalent of 500 _Year_ Pound Bales_

 1790 379 1810 124, 116 1830 553, 960 1850 1, 854, 474 1870 2, 922, 757 1890 5, 850, 219 1910 8, 025, 991 1917 4, 587, 000

In 1910 American cotton made up almost exactly three-quarters of thewhole amount imported into Great Britain. The other countries of Europehave developed a spinning industry by no means inconsiderable. Americancotton is sent to almost all those European countries which spin andweave. 

Such a movement had of course a profound effect upon the currents ofworld trade. The cotton crop is the second in value of all the cropsproduced in the United States, and such a large part of it is exportedthat the credit it gives to its sellers enables them to buy in returnsome of the most valuable of the products manufactured in Europe. 

The following table gives the amount of cotton, expressed in theequivalent of 500 pound bales, exported to the various countries named inthe decennial years:

 ======+=========+=========+========+=======+========+========+========= |_United | | | | |_Nether-| _Year_| Kingdom_|_Germany_|_France_|_Italy_|_Russia_| lands_ |_Belgium_ ------+---------+---------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------- 1821 | 175, 438| 1, 496| 54, 878| 1, 796| 609 | 8, 372| 1830 | 419, 661| 2, 246| 150, 212| 471| 223 | 17, 135| 1840 | 989, 830| 18, 317| 358, 180| 7, 805| 4, 406 | 21, 698| 25, 780 1850 | 863, 062| 10, 090| 251, 668| 18, 707| 8, 677 | 8, 590| 25, 492 1860 |2, 528, 274| 132, 145| 567, 935| 54, 037| 43, 396 | 25, 515| 29, 601 1870 |1, 298, 332| 173, 552| 306, 293| 14, 549| 30, 341 | 17, 050| 3, 452 1880 |2, 433, 255| 308, 045| 359, 693| 59, 126|204, 500 | 65, 325| 17, 896 1890 |2, 905, 152| 837, 641| 484, 759|129, 751|193, 163 | 17, 438| 93, 588 1900 |2, 302, 128|1, 619, 173| 736, 092|443, 951| 54, 950 | 74, 635| 148, 319 1910 |2, 444, 558|1, 887, 657| 968, 422|393, 327| 67, 203 | 18, 823| 102, 346 1917 |2, 387, 101| | 658, 553|369, 213| 15, 945 | 10, 098|

CHAPTER II

Where Cotton is Grown and Spun and Why

We have seen (page 5) that the world's cotton crop is produced chiefly bythe United States, with 56%; India, with 17%; China, with 13-1/2%; Egyptand Russia with 4-1/2%, the remaining 4-1/2% being made up by Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Persia, Japan, and several other countries. 

Primitive Methods ofGrowing in India

India is the first country wherein, so far as we have record, the growingof cotton reached the stage of an industry. There conditions are almostideal, apparently, for the production of a great crop; yet, for manyyears the crop was a small one, and was utilized locally in the domesticmanufacture of the light clothing worn by the people. Nothing remotelyresembling the present modern factory system developed during all thethousands of years that the Indians had the field practically tothemselves. The plant grown in India for a long time produced a short, uncertain staple, difficult to gin and still more difficult to spin. Thegreater part of the cotton growing districts are still given over to theshort staple varieties (about 3/4 inch) but in recent years certainvarieties of Egyptian and American cotton have been produced with somesuccess. About 20, 000, 000 acres are given over to the culture of theplant, but the methods used are to a great extent primitive in theextreme. Most of the crop, being unsuited to the needs of the Britishspinners, is either manufactured in Indian mills, of which the number isconstantly growing, or exported to Japan. Before the war, Germany was alarge consumer of Indian cotton. 

The figures given as representing the Chinese crop probably are not anymore accurate than the usual statistical figures concerning China. TheChinese are still largely in the domestic system of manufacture, and muchof their crop--probably a larger proportion than in India--is spun andwoven in the neighborhood where it is grown, without ever appearing instatistical tables. The methods of growing are equally primitive. Thefiber is short, and the mills of the country import more raw cotton, yarn, and textiles than they export. 

The Growing ImportanceOf Egyptian Staples

The Egyptian crop is one of the most interesting, both in the methodsof culture, and in the product. From the point of view ofstatistics--remembering the uncertainty of the size of the Chinesecrop--Egypt is the third cotton growing country of the world. This isthe more interesting because it was not until about 1820 that Egypt wasconsidered as a source of supply. The present area, under extremelyintensive cultivation, is about 1, 800, 000 acres, and nine-tenths of thisis in the Nile delta. 

Climatic conditions are radically different from those of the UnitedStates. Little rain falls during the growing season, but an elaboratesystem of irrigation provides a sufficient and probably more satisfactorywater supply, insomuch as the quantity of water can be regulated, andthere is little danger of either too much or too little moisture. Theregions where the soil is not composed exclusively of the black deltamud, but is a mixture of sand and mud, produce the best crops. The land, after being plowed, is thrown up into ridges about three feet apart. Channels for water are formed at right angles to the ridges. The seeds, before being sown, in March, are thoroughly soaked, and after theseedlings appear there is frequent hoeing and watering. The total wateris equivalent to a rainfall of about 35 inches. There is littlecultivation in the American fashion, hand labor being employed almostexclusively. The result of all this intensive effort is an abundant cropof long-stapled cotton with an extremely strong fiber, bringing in theopen market a price second only to that of the American Sea Islandvariety. Much of the Egyptian cotton is used in the manufacture ofhosiery and other knit goods, sateens, sewing thread, etc. , but recentlyit has also been found to be exceedingly well fitted for the manufactureof the fabric used in pneumatic tires, and for the duck or filter clothused in such industries as the refining of sugar. 

[Illustration: _Pickers in Delta Field_]

Russian cotton, so-called, is really grown largely in Turkestan though asmall amount is produced in the Southern Caucasus. The culture has beenunder way since very early times, but had little more than localsignificance until about 1875 when the Russian Government took steps tofoster it, distributing American seed of the Upland variety, importingthe necessary equipment, and providing instructors, frequently Americans. Railroads to handle the crop were built, and, with all this favorableassistance, progress was rapid. About one-third of the cotton used in theRussian mills up to the time of the war was grown on Russian soil, theremainder being brought largely from the United States. 

The American CropAs the World's Basis

But the bulk of the world's supply is the cotton grown in the UnitedStates. The price for American Upland Cotton governs the price of theother varieties. The acreage devoted to the cultivation of the cottoncrop in the United States is approximately 34, 000, 000. The increase since1839, when census figures covering this point were first obtained, hasbeen about seventeen fold. The 1916 acreage, of the various States, together with figures giving the value of the crop and the comparativerank, is here given:

 ================+==========+==============+========+=============== | | _Gross | | _Crop Value | |Equivalent 500|_Approx-| Including _States_ | _Acreage_| Pound Bales | imate | Seed | | Exclusive of |Percent-| and Linters_ | | Linters_ | age_ | ----------------+----------+--------------+--------+--------------- Alabama | 1, 977, 000| 517, 890 | 4. 6 | $86, 940, 000 Arizona | | 21, 737 | 0. 1 | 6, 300, 000 Arkansas | 2, 740, 000| 973, 752 | 8. 6 | 164, 840, 000 California | | 57, 826 | 0. 5 | 9, 410, 000 Florida | 183, 000| 37, 858 | 0. 3 | 10, 260, 000 Georgia | 5, 195, 000| 1, 883, 911 | 16. 7 | 322, 600, 000 Louisiana | 1, 454, 000| 638, 729 | 5. 7 | 102, 260, 000 Mississippi | 2, 788, 000| 905, 554 | 8. 0 | 152, 270, 000 Missouri | 345, 000| 60, 831 | 0. 5 | 10, 100, 000 North Carolina | 1, 515, 000| 617, 989 | 5. 5 | 103, 940, 000 Oklahoma | 2, 783, 000| 959, 081 | 8. 5 | 150, 270, 000 South Carolina | 2, 837, 000| 1, 236, 871 | 10. 9 | 207, 220, 000 Tennessee | 882, 000| 240, 525 | 2. 1 | 40, 130, 000 Texas |11, 092, 000| 3, 125, 378 | 27. 7 | 495, 590, 000 Virginia | 50, 000| 18, 777 | 0. 2 | 3, 140, 000 All Other States| | 5, 666 | 0. 1 | 970, 000 +----------+--------------+--------+-------------- Totals |33, 841, 000| 11, 302, 375 | 100. 00 | 1, 866, 240, 000 ================+==========+==============+========+==============

There are generally speaking, two kinds of cotton produced in the UnitedStates--Upland cotton, and Sea Island cotton. The former makes up thegreat bulk of the crop, the relative percentages in 1917 being 99. 2 and. 8. 

The Constant SearchFor Long Staples

A few years ago the terms short-staple and Upland were practicallyinterchangeable, but the great demand for long staple, chiefly from themanufacturers of thread and of pneumatic tire fabrics has led to asuccessful attempt to grow the longer fibers in the Upland districts, sothat now more than a million bales annually are being produced in theUpland districts of cotton with a staple length of 1-1/8 inches and more. The world's total production of long staple is in the neighborhood of2, 250, 000 bales. Egypt is the chief producer outside the United States, her product being approximately 1, 000, 000 bales of 500 pounds every year. Although the product is small, the best Sea Island produced in the UnitedStates grows upon the small islands off the coast of South Carolina. Thelong-staple Upland is grown chiefly in the Mississippi delta, where theproduct is called "Peeler, " "benders, " etc. , though the percentage oflong-staple produced elsewhere is steadily increasing. The success ofcertain Arizona growers in producing long-staple from Egyptian seed isbeing watched with great interest. More than 3, 000 bales came from thissource in 1916, the fiber averaging 1-1/2 inches in length. There hasrecently been developed there, the new and important Pima variety, whichis superior to the native Egyptian cotton, being both longer and whiter, and the growers are now planting Pima almost exclusively. 

The following table, taken from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, gives thecomparative length of staple of the more important varieties of cotton. The order in which they are given represents, roughly, their relativecommercial value:

 _Length of Staple Sea Island Cotton in Inches_ Carolina Sea Island 1. 8 Florida Sea Island 1. 8 Georgia Sea Island 1. 7 Barbados Sea Island 2. 

 Egyptian Cottons Yannovitch 1. 5 Abassi 1. 5 Good Brown Egyptian (Mitafifi) 1. 2

 American Cotton Good Middling Memphis 1. 3 Good Middling Texas 1. 0 Good Middling Upland 1. 0

 Indian Cottons Fine Tinnevelly . 8 Fine Bhaunagar 1. 0 Fine Amraoti 1. 0 Fine Broach . 9 Fine Bengal . 9 Fine ginned Sind . 8 Good ginned Kumta 1. 0

The table of the number of spindles in each country in the world, givenon page 6, gives some idea of the relative position of the United Statesin the field of cotton manufacturing. We have seen how the Englishindustry, having the prior start, grew to imposing proportions and helpedto bring about a change almost as great in its effects as the FrenchRevolution, which was occurring at almost the same time. Britishsupremacy in cotton manufacturing has never been truly challenged, butthere has been an appreciable growth in several other countries, and inGermany and Japan, at least, the recent development has been little shortof phenomenal. New figures will probably show that in the future Japanwill be the chief competitor of England and the United States for a shareof the cotton trade of the world. 

[Illustration: _Fall River, Massachusetts_]

The Home MarketCreated An Industry

The chief factor in the growth of the American industry was probably notthe nearness of the source of supply, cheap fuel or labor, nor any ofthese factors which operated in the case of England, such as climate, geographical position, and shipping control, but more than anything elsethe presence of a market close at hand which grew so rapidly, morerapidly indeed than the industry could grow to meet it. Aided to someextent by an import tariff, the manufacturers have weathered some shortperiods of depression, but in the main the industry has grown in directratio to the growth of the country. 

[Illustration: _A typical Southern mill_]

New England As HomeOf American Spinning

The cotton mill, as we have seen, early chose New England as itsdomicile. Mills are scattered more or less throughout the entire region, but there are several localities which stand out beyond all others, andalmost deserve the title they have acquired as the centers of theindustry. Premier place for a long time was held by Fall River, and evennow the race between that city and New Bedford is strong, with the leadslightly in favor of the former city. 

Bristol County, Mass. , in which these two centers, and Taunton, arelocated, Providence, R. I. , and Middlesex County, Mass. , togethercontained 10, 086, 686 spindles in 1917, or 29. 5% of the country's total of34, 221, 252. 

The growth in this one locality is due probably to the advantages whichcome with centralization, as well as to the natural advantages theypossessed. These latter, which include particularly water power and amoist climate, are not as important now, With steam power and mechanicalhumidifiers as they were a generation ago. 

In the Middle Atlantic States, the number of plants and the spindlagehave remained about stationary over a long period of years, and are evenshowing a tendency to decrease. Small weaving establishments which buytheir yarn are particularly numerous around Philadelphia, and there arelarge cotton duck mills in and near Baltimore. 

Mills in the Midst ofCotton Plantations

It has been in the South, however, that the growth of the cottonmanufacturing industry in the last few decades has been most phenomenal. In 1860 there were 324, 052 spindles in the cotton growing States comparedwith 8, 632, 087 in New England. In 1917, the figures were: NorthernStates (including Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, andVermont), 19, 835, 662 spindles devoted to the spinning of cottonexclusively; Southern States (including Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia), 14, 292, 918 spindles devoted to cotton exclusively. 

The census figures do not give the number of spindles in each city exceptwhen the confines of the city and of the county happen to coincide. Butthe appended table is presented as showing the spindlage of countieshaving more than 100, 000 spindles devoted to the spinning of cotton. 

About 1880, the Southerner saw the opportunity that awaited him when heshould manufacture his own cotton. At that time he was consuming only188, 748 bales, while New England took 1, 129, 498. In ten years, he wasutilizing more than half a million bales, while New England had justpassed the million and a half figure. In 1905, the South consumed2, 140, 151 bales, while New England had climbed to only 1, 753, 282. Thefigures are Scherer's, who points out that the race was won intwenty-five years. However, as competition with the South increased, NewEngland, following the earlier lead of Old England, has tended always toproduce a finer and finer quality of cloth, leaving the coarser grades ofsheeting, drills and ducks to the Southern mills. Thus, while the Southis consuming an ever larger proportion of the cotton crop, she is stillfar from receiving for her product the money that comes to the NewEnglander, who with a higher grade of labor and greater variation ofoutput is constantly catering, with dress fabrics and fine stuffs ofvarious kinds, to a discriminating well-to-do patronage. 

 _Spindles _County_ (Number)_ Bristol, Mass. 7, 294, 221 Providence, R. I. 1, 709, 713 Middlesex, Mass. 1, 082, 752 Hillsborough, N. H. 907, 245 Spartanburg, S. C. 831, 476 Windham, Conn. 780, 232 Worcester, Mass. 766, 110 Greenville, S. C. 758, 144 Essex, Mass. 645, 020 Hampden, Mass. 642, 096 Gaston, N. C. 603, 102 Kent, R. I. 594, 380 Anderson, S. C. 582, 464 Berkshire, Mass. 521, 408 New London, Conn. 512, 170 Oneida, N. Y. 419, 255 York, Me. 408, 600 Androscoggin, Me. 402, 471 Muscogee, Ga. 346, 740 Pittsylvania, Va. 346, 320 Union, S. C. 330, 656 Strafford, N. H. 318, 160 Cabarrus, N. C. 315, 810 Mecklenburg, N. C. 272, 198 Guilford, N. C. 262, 862 Richland, S. C. 244, 660 Essex, N. J. 232, 291 Albany, N. Y. 226, 564 Madison, Ala. 225, 168 Greenwood, S. C. 217, 744 Pickens, S. C. 211, 320 Bristol, R. I. 210, 488 Hampshire, Mass. 198, 792 York, S. C. 198, 404 Fulton, Ga. 198, 016 Aiken, S. C. 193, 989 Laurens, S. C. 193, 312 Richmond, Ga. 192, 914 Rockingham, N. C. 191, 810 Durham, N. C. 172, 532 Newberry, S. C. 168, 040 Chambers, Ala. 164, 000 Cherokee, S. C. 163, 820 Kennebec, Me. 163, 815 Alamance, N. C. 153, 176 Knox, Tenn. 152, 100 Lancaster, S. C. 151, 768 Richmond, N. C. 149, 748 Chester, S. C. 146, 692 Stanley, N. C. 146, 000 Rutherford, N. C. 143, 400 Calhoun, Ala. 138, 048 Troup, Ga. 136, 204 Floyd, Ga. 126, 264 Cleveland, N. C. 125, 182 Cumberland, Me. 124, 392 Spalding, Ga. 121, 252 Talladega, Ala. 115, 448 Philadelphia, Pa. 114, 547 Merrimack, N. H. 113, 316 Davidson, N. C. 110, 564 Baltimore City. 106, 008 Halifax, N. C. 104, 116 Hall, Ga. 102, 588

The wealth of the world--at least up to the time of the Great War--wasconstantly increasing and while there is little likelihood that thedemand for the coarser grades of goods will fall off, the need for finerstuffs, not only in the United States, but abroad, is constantly growing. The greatest development of the South is probably still to come. 

The locations of the world's cotton markets have been dictated by thelocation of the growing fields and the manufacturing centers. Thus wefind that the great raw cotton markets of the United States are in NewYork and New Orleans. In Europe they are at Liverpool, Bremen and Havre. Because of conditions imposed by the German government, the Bremen marketis largely dependent upon New York and Liverpool. The other great worldmarket is that of Alexandria, which, although it handles but acomparatively small part of the world's crop, is important on account ofthe quality of the staple which makes up the Egyptian bale. 

The two chief American markets, New York and New Orleans, are sharplydifferentiated. The New Orleans market is a true trader's market. Thegreat bulk of the sales made on the New Orleans floor are bona-fidesales, in which cotton actually changes hands. The New York market on theother hand is a merchants' and manufacturers' market, in which businesstransactions are protected against loss by the purchase or sale of"futures", though, of course, there is always a large amount ofspeculating. Delivery is rarely demanded. The function of the exchange, therefore, is largely that of insurance. The intricacies of this marketwill be discussed later. 

CHAPTER III

The Raw Cotton Market

Because of the ramifications of the cotton industry, the cotton itself, on its devious way from planter to consumer, is successively the concernof a series of individuals and corporations. The immense value of theproduct, the expense of growing, handling, manufacturing, and selling itall mean that great quantities of capital are utilized in bringing it atlast to its final consumer. At any stage of the process, cottonrepresents no inconsiderable part of the nation's wealth, and to expediteits journey, merchandising and financial methods of a highly specializedtechnique have been developed. There are two very clearly marked stagesin this process. The first has to do with the raw cotton, as it goes fromplanter to mill. The second has to do with the journey from mill toconsumer. The first is usually called the Raw Cotton Market, and thesecond the Cloth Market. 

The planter begins his work early in the spring. His crop is dependentupon his ability to secure and pay for the labor to work it, for thetools and machinery which are used, and his own expenses. Small plantersare rarely sufficiently in funds to enable them to go through the growingseason without financial assistance. They must borrow money, and theyusually borrow it with the growing crop as a basis. 

The Local GrowerAnd the Charge Account

They may borrow from the country merchant in the town near which theirplantations are located. Credit here is usually furnished through the"charge account" system, whereby the merchant supplies the planter'swants for the growing season, even to the extent of giving credit to hisfarm hands. Tenant farmers live almost entirely on credit furnished bythe store-keepers of the vicinity. When the picking season begins, inJuly, August, or September, according to the region concerned, themerchant, in lieu of money, may take the cotton as it comes from thegins, crediting the grower thereof at the market price. The cotton thusaccumulated is sold to local buyers, or, occasionally, to shippers orexporters. In the case of the larger plantations, or groups ofplantations operated by syndicates or corporations, the cotton isfrequently shipped direct to the mill or, more often, to a warehouse. Thelarger producers, instead of getting their credit from the local stores, as their tenant farmers do, are financed either by their banks, or bytheir buyers, who in turn are financed by their bankers. 

The Street BuyersOf Texas Towns

In some districts, particularly in Texas, there is the small or localbuyer, usually called a "street buyer, " who operates in the smallertowns, buying his cotton at the gins in lots of from one to ten bales, either from the small planters, or from the country merchants. Thisbuying gives a certain concentration to the crop, and enables the largerbuyers to deal in lots of comparatively uniform quality from certainregions, the general type of whose product is known. 

[Illustration: _Street buyer in a Southern town_]

Cotton bought from the planters or from the country merchants is almostinvariably paid for in cash. 

Cotton is frequently sold at the compress point, rather than at the gin, this course being pursued in the case of large producers, or when theoriginal buyer is a mere local operator. One of the most importantoperations, commercially as well as industrially, is the grading ofcotton, which takes place as a rule at the compress point under thesupervision of the buyer, who employs experts for this purpose. Cottonmills as a rule operate on certain specified grades of cotton, and anydeviation from this grade means either a readjustment of machinery ordisgruntled and dissatisfied employes, or, perhaps, an inability to fillan order for cloth of certain types. The manufacturer will usually refuseto accept any grades save those he has specifically commissioned thebuyer to obtain for him. The actual grades, and the terms describing themhave been established by the United States Government, and are rigidlyadhered to by the trade. Prices are established on the grade known as"middling" as a basis, and variation from this basis is taken up in theprice. 

Standardization ofAmerican Cotton Grades

The grades, for white cotton, as established by usage and confirmed byGovernmental standardization are:

 Middling Fair Strict Low Middling Strict Good Middling Low Middling Good Middling Strict Good Ordinary Strict Middling Good Ordinary Middling

For yellow tinged stock the grades are:

 Strict Good Middling Middling Good Middling Strict Low Middling Strict Middling Low Middling

For yellow stained and blue stained there are only three grades quoted, good middling, strict middling, and middling, the inference here beingthat stained cotton below the basic grade, is unsuited for mostcommercial purposes. 

With cotton selling around thirty cents a pound, the difference betweenthe cost per pound of middling fair, the highest market grade of whitecotton, and good ordinary, the lowest market grade, may amount to twelveor thirteen cents. The value of the shipment, and its use as a basis forcredit, is dependent upon its proper classification. 

The large cotton buyers purchase for the account of mills, for exporters, or for clients abroad. They are usually firms of strong financialstanding, and as we have seen, they are bankers or factors themselves, financing growers or small buyers during the growing of the crop, and thefirst concentration of the cotton. But when the large movement of cottonis on, it is frequently necessary that they, like the local banks, mustbe financed in order that they may execute their orders, or, as isfrequently the case, accept cotton sent to them on consignment. Cottonsent on consignment must be stored until a market is found for it, and inorder that proper storage facilities may be supplied, the provision ofsuitable warehouse facilities is an important matter. 

Warehousing asIndustry's Great Need

Until recently, warehousing in its relations to the textile trade, hadnot been developed to the extent which might have been expected in thosemethods which would make it of the greatest use and advantage to textileinterests. By means of the facilities which could properly be afforded bywarehouses, manufacturers, or merchants should be able, at times offavorable markets, to lay in large stocks of materials, and to financethem safely and easily. 

Today, this need is being met in constantly increasing measure by theIndependent Warehouses, Inc. , affiliated with the Textile Banking Co. , and having, like the latter, the support of the Guaranty Trust Company ofNew York, and the Liberty National Bank of New York. 

Modern warehouses of approved type, with all requisite facilities, willbe established by this company at various ports of entry throughout thecountry, as well as at the important concentration points in the cottonbelt, and also in the great textile manufacturing centers. 

[Illustration: _Weighing cotton on the compress platform_]

Thus it is seen that the cotton merchant has an important economicfunction to perform. His is the duty of gathering up the great aggregateof cotton, from all parts of the cotton belt, and distributing it inexactly the quantity and grade needed to the cotton manufacturers of theworld. In the performance of this function, and in order that the supplyof cotton may be fed out exactly as it is needed by the manufacturers, the cotton merchants have found it convenient, and even necessary toestablish great common markets where they may meet and enter into thetransactions with each other and the whole world which are necessary tobring the cotton into the channels of commerce and keep it moving to itsmultitudinous destinations. These markets are in addition to the numerouslocal markets where the preliminary concentration takes place, and tosome extent they are subsidiary to the latter, where the cotton of theactual quantity and quality they are seeking is to be had in the firstinstance. Yet it is the great markets which establish the prices, for itis they which are in close and immediate touch with all the other marketsof the world, and it is on their floors that the merchants and brokersmeet who deal in great quantities. It is their connection with thenumerous sources of information which gives these great markets theirimportance, for it is they which register immediately and most accuratelythe resultant of the sum total of all the economic forces whichdetermine the price. 

[Illustration: _The New York Cotton Exchange_]

The great cotton markets of the world are those of New York and NewOrleans, in the United States; Liverpool, in England; Bremen, in Germany;Havre, in France; Alexandria, in Egypt; and Bombay, in India. There aredifferences between these markets which give a greater importance to someof them. Bremen, which serves a large territory, operates undergovernmental restrictions which make it necessary for Bremen merchants todeal in other markets as well. Havre serves chiefly the needs of France, which is not one of the large cotton consuming countries. Alexandriadeals only in Egyptian cottons, and Bombay, whose dealings are confinedmostly to the native staples, has neither the responsiveness nor thecompleteness of the remaining markets. Thus, by elimination, the threegreat markets of the world, wherein cotton of all kinds is dealt in, andall forms of transactions in it are common are those of New York, NewOrleans, and Liverpool. To these, the cotton world looks for guidancefrom day to day. The prices established on their several floors are theprices of the world. 

[Illustration: _Cotton train going from gin to compress_]

The Liverpool Exchange, under different names, has existed since 1841, having taken approximately its present form in 1870, in the attempts tostabilize conditions after the great speculative period which resultedfrom the American Civil War. The New York and New Orleans Exchanges wereboth organized the following year. The uniformity of rules and practicesin the trade which resulted from the establishment of the exchanges havebeen of inestimable benefit to the industry and to the world, and thisdespite occasional abuses, which have usually been corrected as methodsfor correction have been evolved. 

Spot Markets and ThoseWhich Deal in "Futures"

The New Orleans Cotton Market, and those of lesser cities, are largelyspot markets, that is, the dealings which takes place in the Exchanges atthose points involve the actual transferring of cotton which is on hand, or, at least, contracted for. The New York market deals preponderantlyin what are known as contracts for future delivery, or, in the languageof the Exchange, "futures. " The Liverpool Cotton Market is both a great"spot" cotton market, and a great "futures" market. The striking thingabout these "futures" contracts is that but few of them are fulfilled byactual delivery. 

The question then arises, what function is fulfilled by the New YorkExchange that it should have such an important place in the cottonmarket? To the uninitiated the speculative features of the market haveoften served to condemn it, and at times of speculative fever, or ofmanipulation such as has occurred on one or two occasions, there has beenpublic agitation calling for legislation against dealing in futures. Yetthe New York Exchange performs a very definite and valuable service, andits trading methods have served to stabilize the whole industry, and toremove from it much of that very speculation which is frequently chargedagainst the Exchange itself. 

The justification of the Exchange is found in the fact that the futurescontracts common on its floor afford the cotton merchant and manufacturera chance to insure themselves against losses occasioned by fluctuationsin the market. The method by which this is done is called hedging. 

Why the MerchantMust Hedge His Sales

For the cotton merchant, the situation as it develops is approximatelythis: buying, as he must, all grades and quantities of cotton, he mayhave an immediate market with the spinners whom he serves for onlycertain of these grades, and thus may have left on his hands a largesupply of cotton of other grades which came to him in his purchases whichhe has no call for at the time. These "overs" are subject to the risk ofa decline in value unless the merchant can find some way to protecthimself. Nor is this risk the only one run by the cotton merchant. Thespinners frequently contract for months ahead for the output of theirmills, and it is part of the merchant's task to see that the cotton isavailable at a contract price when the spinners are in need of it. Suchcontracts for future deliveries are not only common but customary. If itwere impossible for the spinner to make such contracts, it would, ofcourse, be impossible for the weaver to make future contracts for thedelivery of cloth. Such a condition unsettling the distributing markets, would be intolerable. Hence, the necessity of future contracts betweenmerchants and spinners. The situation would otherwise be a very difficultone for the merchant whose supply of cotton, and the price he must payfor it, are subject to the vagaries of nature, which may grant abountiful crop one year, and a short and inferior one the next, withconsequent fluctuations in price sufficient not alone to wipe out hisprofit but his capital as well. 

The Hedge As aCredit Transaction

Hedging, as has been said, affords the protection, against serious losswhich these varying conditions make probable. 

"It may almost be said, " observes Arthur R. Marsh, former President ofthe New York Cotton Exchange, "that as the main business of banks todayis not dealing in money, but in credits, so the main business of thecotton exchanges is now in credit transactions in cotton, toward whichthe actual cotton 'on the spot' stands in much the same relation as themoney in the banks to the sum total of their transactions in credit. Itserves as a reserve at once for the satisfaction of unliquidated creditbalances and for the maintenance of sound credit values in all the creditoperations. "

Elsewhere, Mr. Marsh describes the hedging process in these words: "Ahedge is the purchase or sale of contracts for one hundred or more balesof cotton for future delivery, made not for the purpose of receiving ordelivering the actual cotton, but as an insurance against fluctuations inthe market that might unfavorably affect other ventures in which thebuyer or seller of the hedge is actually engaged. "

[Illustration: _The floor of the New York Cotton Exchange_]

How Merchants SecureProtection by Hedging

The cotton merchant, in making a hedge, would proceed in this fashion. Having made an actual sale of cotton to a spinner for future delivery, the price being fixed according to current quotations in New York fordeliveries to be made in the month specified in the contract, he wouldbuy futures for a corresponding amount of cotton on the New York CottonExchange. 

If the price of cotton should have advanced when the time for thedelivery of the actual cotton comes, he will be able to sell his futurescontract at a higher price, thus offsetting the loss sustained upon thedeal in actual cotton. Or, if he prefers, he may hold the "futures"contract until its maturity and sell it at the then prevailing figure. The first course would be the customary one for a bona-fide merchant, whose sole concern is protecting himself against loss by fluctuations inprice. 

If, on the other hand, cotton should fall before the merchant bought tofulfill his actual contract, he would make a profit upon his sales to thespinner. He would, however, suffer a loss upon his futures contract, forthe seller would be able to purchase the cotton to fulfill the contractat a lower point than the contract called for, and would consequently beable to deliver to the merchant who made the hedge, cotton which thelatter would be forced to accept at a price higher than the thenprevailing one, and thus again the profit and loss would balance eachother. The usual custom is, not for the merchant to accept delivery, butto pay over to the seller of the futures contract the difference betweenthe contract price and that prevailing. This would be just the differencebetween his own purchasing and selling price in his actual dealing withthe spinner, and so would eliminate the profit, due to change in price, made in that transaction. Thus, by the hedging process, the merchantloses a possible profit on a falling market, but at the same time failsto suffer a loss when the market is against him. 

Hedging as PracticedBy Cotton Manufacturers

The manufacturer's hedging is necessarily somewhat different in practice, though the same in principle. If he accepts orders for cloth requiringmore cotton than is being held in his warehouse, he may buy futurescontracts to the amount of the additional cotton he will need. Then inthe event that his actual purchase of cotton may be at a figure whichwould tend to reduce or eliminate his profits on the sale of the cloth, already fixed by contract, he may sell his futures contract at acorresponding profit, thereby preventing loss. Should the price of cottonfall in the interim, his profit on the sale of the cloth will be larger, but the settlement of his futures contract will be expensive to the sameextent. Thus he sacrifices the chance of a greater possible profit inorder to be insured against loss. 

[Illustration: _Compress bales bound for New Orleans_]

It is probably more common for the cotton merchant to hedge than for themanufacturer to adopt that proceeding. The manufacturer, as a rule, hasbeen accustomed to buy his cotton during the buying season, that is, inOctober, November, December, and January, and he makes his arrangementswith his selling agents on the basis of the price paid, trusting to hisown judgment, and the comparatively small fluctuations in the price ofcloth in normal times, to protect him against loss. It is usuallybelieved that the Southern mills, being newer, and frequently of adifferent financial standing, have found it more desirable to haverecourse to this form of insurance than their older competitors in theNorth. Then, too, the rapid development of the cotton warehousing systemhas made it less necessary for the manufacturers to tie their money up ingreat quantities of cotton, as they can buy when the market appearsfavorable. 

Protection for MillsRunning for Stock

A very important point, however, and one which all manufacturers would dowell to consider carefully is the protection which a "futures" marketgives to a manufacturer making plain goods for stock, particularly on afalling raw material market, which, of course, would also mean a fallinggoods market. To stop the mill because values were falling would beimpossible without utter disorganization, and its attendant heavy loss, while to keep on manufacturing stock goods with a certainty that theywould be worth less each succeeding month is a disheartening prospect forthe mill. 

If, however, the manufacturer sells "futures" for the succeeding monthsto the extent of the cotton which he would require each month tomanufacture the goods, he can run his machinery as usual and have aperfectly free mind, as he has safeguarded himself against any loss dueto a falling value of the raw material. Suppose, for instance, the cottonmarket fell off, say one cent a pound each month, with a correspondingfall in the value of the woven goods. In such an event, the manufacturercould, as each month arrived, buy a contract for an amount correspondingto what he had sold, and at a proportionately less price, thus making aprofit on the "futures" which he had sold to an extent which wouldcorrespond, approximately, to the smaller value which his manufacturedgoods would then have in the market. Thus the profit on the one sidewould take care of the loss on the other. If the market rose instead offalling, he would make a loss in replacing his futures contract, but hisgoods would then command a higher value, and again no loss would beexperienced. 

This method of hedging is the regular and standard practice of theEnglish cotton mills, and, of course, of many of our domestic mills, butthere are some manufacturers who, through their unfamiliarity with theoperations of the futures market, are quite unaware of the protectionwhich they thus have at hand. 

The Responsiveness ofthe Great Exchanges

The great exchanges, and the New York Exchange in particular, are thusused by cotton merchants and manufacturers in every part of the world toprotect themselves in their buying and selling operations. The value ofmiddling cotton in New York is kept upon par with the value of the samecotton in any growing or manufacturing point, such factors as freight, insurance, brokerage, etc. , being allowed for in the quoted price. Quotations on the Liverpool Exchange are thus higher than quotations inNew York by the difference between the amount it costs to deliver cottonin Liverpool and to deliver it in New York. Thus the merchant andmanufacturer is able to buy and sell hedge contracts on the New YorkExchange, knowing that operations at the New York price in New York areon a parity with operations at the Liverpool price in Liverpool, or atthe Havre price in Havre. Thus the hedge contract which a Southernmerchant sells in Atlanta, through his broker on the New York Exchange, may be bought by a spinner in Tokyo or Manchester, anxious to insure hissupply of cotton at a price which would make his contracts profitable. 

In normal times the selling of merchants and the buying of manufacturingengaged in actual and bona fide hedging transaction has been estimated bycompetent authorities to make up fully seventy-five per cent. Of thetrading done on the New York Exchange. The remaining twenty-five percent. May thus be attributed to speculative operations, that isoperations entered into by outsiders through brokers, on the chance of arise or a fall in the market. Nor is such speculation without its value. It is the speculators, as a rule, who are the first to take advantage ofcrop reports or weather conditions, or news likely to affect the marketfavorably or unfavorably, and buy or sell as their judgment dictates. Their operations serve to discount such changes to some extent, or atleast to make the breaks and rises more gradual than they would otherwisebe. 

In abnormal times, that is times of great scarcity and great demand, orbumper crops and small demand, the speculative element plays a largerpart, for it is in such times that the greatest fluctuations in pricetake place. Merchants or manufacturers holding hedging contracts areunder a greater incentive to buy or sell, as they see their opportunitiesfor profit growing greater or less, as the case may be, and inconsequence more contracts are made, and they pass from hand to hand withgreater rapidity, the gain or loss thus being distributed among a greaternumber of persons than would otherwise be the case. It is the operationsof speculators, and the manipulation that once or twice during itshistory has been possible by unscrupulous traders which has brought aboutat such times public agitation for the abolition of the Exchange. Recentchanges in the form of the cotton contract have made it almost impossiblefor such operations, if repeated, to be successful, and thus there islittle likelihood that the very important economic function of theExchange will be interfered with by legislation. 

CHAPTER IV

The Cloth Market

The output of the manufacturer finds its way to the ultimate consumerthrough a variety of channels. What these are will depend upon the mannerin which the various mills are organized, and their respective policiesas to the marketing of their products. Some mills, usually very largeorganizations, will have plants completely equipped, in every department, spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing, finishing, etc. , and will processall of their goods themselves in every detail, offering them on themarket in their finished form. Some of these may make a wide variety offabrics suitable for one class of trade, or for many classes of trade, while others will specialize on a few articles. A good many concerns thatare not of the largest size, but which confine their production to a fewarticles, may also put the goods through every operation themselves. 

Then there are a great number of cotton mills, many of them of very largesize, which do no weaving at all, but confine themselves to spinning, finding a market for their yarns with the many weaving mills which haveno spinning plants. 

Many Large MillsDo No Finishing

Numerous mills, both large and small, manufacturing, principally, goodsof a staple grade, which may either be of fine or coarse character, selltheir entire product in the gray, or unfinished state, because they donot wish to burden themselves with the task of putting the goods throughthe various finishing treatments necessary to fit them for the market. This method of disposing of the product appeals to many for it reducesthe manufacturing operations to the spinning of the yarn, and to theweaving of the cloth. The owners or managers of the mills may have had noexperience outside of these branches, and if they themselves were toattempt to finish, or "convert, " the goods they would be entering strangefields. 

Whatever method of merchandising may be adopted, it is certainly obviousthat the product of large mills is so great that it must be disposed ofin a large way, and hence various channels of outlet have grown up tosatisfy the requirements of the case. 

Dealing Direct WithDry Goods Jobbers

A substantial portion of the output of the mills (but nothing like whatit was years ago, and it grows relatively smaller every year), isdisposed of directly to dry goods jobbing houses, and by them to retaildealers, who sell it by the yard to the consumer. This practice wasformerly more widespread, but has diminished greatly in recent years. Afurther enormous yardage passes eventually through the cutting-up houses, which manufacture garments of every kind, from overalls to pajamas, orfrom raincoats to shirts, and dispose of their products to distributors, who eventually sell them to the public. Then there are retailers whoserequirements for goods of particular kinds are so considerable that theirorders are of sufficient magnitude to warrant the mills in dealing withthem direct. 

Again, there are the great mail-order houses, with a gigantic annualturnover, whose catalogues go to every part of the land, and whichhandle great quantities of piece goods, as well as made-up garments, andwhose custom is eagerly sought for. 

[Illustration: _Thousands of looms in a single room_]

Other mills make fabrics suitable for use in the military and navalestablishments of the country, and in other public channels, and which, in selling these fabrics, will deal directly with the Government, orindirectly through intermediaries. 

In addition to these, and other domestic outlets, there is a greatquantity of goods produced for export, which are handled through housesspecially organized for that trade. 

Merchandising byDry Goods Jobber

One of the oldest established agencies for handling mill products is thedry goods jobber, and it is to be remarked that many large retail housesdo also a substantial jobbing business, though generally less so incottons than in other classes of fabrics. The jobber will buy finishedproducts from those mills which sell goods in that state, and will alsobuy large amounts of gray goods. These he will sell principally to retaildistributors, but his transactions, in addition, will extend into amultitude of channels, and, he will deal with small garment manufacturersand makers of all kinds of wares, and will also sell considerablequantities to the larger cutters when they are unable, for one reason oranother, to buy direct from the mills or from the converters. There arealso numerous small jobbing concerns which buy substantial quantitiesfrom the larger jobbers as occasion may require. 

One of the greatest avenues of outlet is through a class of dealers knownas converters, and there are converters operating in every kind of fabricfrom cotton to silk. In the last forty or fifty years, this business hasdeveloped into immense proportions, and the converter performs a real andimportant service in the trade. He is intimately acquainted with theneeds of his customers, and possesses a fair knowledge of the kinds ofgoods put out by the various mills and the different constructions inwhich they are sold, and is well acquainted with all of the marketdyeing, finishing, bleaching, and printing concerns, having also a fairunderstanding of the various treatments accorded to the goods. He buyshis goods in the gray from the mills, and sends them to the finishers, printers, etc. , to be treated, according to his instructions. By acareful studying of the fabric constructions, and of the subsequenttreatments, he is able to create fabrics of a suitable and marketablecharacter, which are in some respects different from those offered by anyof his competitors, and which are brought out with an exact knowledge ofthe requirements of the trade to which he is catering. He is able to makea profit, and generally a very substantial one, by handling the goods inthis way. 

Considerable capital is required by the converter, as goods bought in thegray have to be paid for on practically a cash basis, and he may have tocarry them for a time before they are finally marketed. The convertersells to the cutting-up houses, to jobbers, and to retailers, or, infact, to whatever trade he seeks. Large and profitable businesses havethus been built up. Many converters have adopted their own distinctivetrade marks, and since the goods that they handle are known by thesetrade marks, the identity of the mill which made them originally is oftenentirely unknown to the ultimate consumer. The converter can give hisbusiness to whatever mill, at the time, will give him the best value forhis money. 

Jobbers Must KnowStatus of Mills

These operations are facilitated by the services of another class ofintermediaries, the cloth brokers. If a buyer, whether he be retailer, jobber, converter, or what not, wishes to secure goods of a certain kind, he would have a very difficult task if he had to canvass the entiremarket, and ascertain what was being offered. Hence he is likely to go tothe cloth brokers. They are in touch with all the principal manufacturingsources of supply, and will have daily quotations of the offerings of thedifferent mills; he will know which mills are "sold up, " and which areopen for business, and what class of goods they desire to sell. Consequently the cloth brokers are in a position to offer to would-bepurchasers a wide variety of the different cloths which are available onthe market, and it is their business to buy from the mills as cheaply asthey can, and so get the best possible price for their customers. Thetransactions are handled on a small commission, and the average buyer, inmany kinds of goods, is able to do much better by working through abroker than by opening negotiations directly with the mill. 

Most Mills HaveOffices in Chief Markets

Mills selling their products through brokers in this manner may, or maynot, have a representative stationed in the goods market, according tocircumstances. Mills, manufacturing a limited number of plain fabrics, and which do not sell through brokers, may also be withoutrepresentatives in the primary goods market, and will dispose of theirproduct directly from the mills, partly by correspondence, and partlythrough the efforts of their travelers. The great mass of the mills, however, are regularly and efficiently represented in the great centralgoods markets, principally New York, though also in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and elsewhere, and their selling agencies are very highlyorganized institutions. 

These establishments which have sufficient capital to enable them tofinance themselves--with or without the assistance of regular bankers'loans--may maintain their own selling offices, and market their productin their own names directly to their customers. The amount of capitalrequired to handle a business in this way is proportionately very large, for the concern must be able to keep itself sufficiently supplied withraw materials, and then to carry the expenses as these materials passthrough the slow stages of manufacture until the goods are finallyfinished, after which they may have to be kept in stock for a time untilthe delivery dates, and then, after shipment, the accounts have to becarried until the bills are paid, so that, from the time the manufacturerpays for his raw material until he finally receives pay for his goods isa very long period. 

Loans Made UponWarehouse Receipts

The financing of a business conducted in this way can be assisted byloans from warehouses upon stocks of raw material stored there, by bankaccommodation, and by facilities which certain banks give for the cashingof a substantial percentage of those accounts on the books of the concernwhich the customers have not discounted themselves. Also, in handling hismerchandise in this way, the manufacturer must have a thoroughunderstanding of the best means of marketing his product, and this careof the selling end is, of course, an added burden upon his shoulderswhich, in many cases, he may not feel competent to handle properly. 

Therefore, the comparatively few concerns which do have sufficientcapital to sell directly, in addition to the many from great to small whohave not, will market their product through what are known as dry goodscommission houses, sometimes referred to as factors, and simply ascommercial bankers. The commission house system, as we have it here, doesnot exist anywhere else, and its great growth in the United States hasbeen largely due to certain peculiarities in our banking methods, whichhave prevented mills--even those with a reasonably sufficient supply ofcapital--from obtaining the amount of direct banking accommodationnecessary for their needs. 

The commission house, in its usual relations with its mills, undertakesto conduct the sale of their products. Some commission agents insist uponhaving the entire selling control of all of the goods the mill produces, or at any rate, of all the goods of the kind which they are equipped tosell. Others, again, will take over a partial selling control of theproduct of a mill, and various lines of the same manufacturer may befound offering through different channels. There are some obviousdisadvantages connected with this latter procedure. 

If the mill is a very large one, the selling agent may handle no goodsexcept the product of that mill, but in the great majority of cases, thefactor will represent a considerable number of mills. 

Immediately on receipt of the invoices of the goods consigned to theselling agent, the mill can draw against them a percentage of theirvalue, previously agreed upon, usually about two-thirds of their netselling price, and upon these loans interest at the rate of 6% ischarged. The difference between the rate at which the commission housecan borrow money, (in normal times perhaps 4 to 4-1/2%), and the 6% whichis usually charged to the mills, constitutes a considerable part of theprofits of the factor's business. 

Factors ProvideSelling Facilities

The factor often provides a store, together with a complete selling andoffice force, and every facility for receiving, storing, selling, andshipping the goods, and for financing the business. The salesmen of thehouse travel throughout the country, reaching all the important markets, and the managers of the different departments, who thus understand theneeds of the market, are in a position to advise the mill withintelligence and exactness as to the kind of goods which should be madeto meet the requirements of the trade. The cost of warehousing and ofinsurance on the merchandise is also paid by the commission agent. 

[Illustration: _Spinning room in a large mill. These are all ringspindles_]

The prices at which the goods are to be sold are fixed by the mill, but, of course, they will finally sell at prices determined by the marketconditions. As the goods are sold, the amounts which they bring arecredited to the mill, less whatever has been advanced against them. Theselling agent also stands ready, no matter on what time and terms thegoods may be sold, to credit the mill with the net value of the sale, less 6% interest for the unexpired time within which the customer maypay, and from this interest charge also he secures part of his return. Ofcourse if bank rates are very high, as they sometimes are for shortperiods, the factor may be out of pocket on the interest account, insteadof making profit. As the goods are sold, so are the equities in themreleased, and the balance is credited to the mill. If, however, the goodssell at a loss there will be no equities coming to the mill, and, infact, there are not infrequently deficiencies to make up. 

For these services, and according to the nature of the goods being sold, various commissions are charged, usually ranging between the limits of 4and 8% of the net returns of the sales. Plain unfinished goods which aremarketed in large quantities are charged for at a relatively low figure, while fancy goods, sold in smaller quantities and requiring more effortand expense to sell them, are charged for at a higher figure. 

The selling agent also guarantees the credits of the firms to which hesells, so that no losses for bad debts can fall upon the manufacturer, but, at the same time, he will decline orders from any concerns exceptthose with whose credit he is entirely satisfied. 

Not infrequently when the manufacturer conducts his own sellingoperations, he will use the facilities afforded by the commission housefor the financial part of the business only, taking advances on hisgoods, having his sales cashed, and his credits guaranteed, etc. Forthese lesser services, of course, the commissions charged are smaller. 

When goods are charged out, the bills are payable to the commissionhouse, and so, as far as the customer is concerned, the commission houseis the principal in the transaction. In many cases certain modifiedarrangements are made, but in most instances the business is conducted asherein described, and it may fairly be said that the bulk of the drygoods of all kinds produced in the United States finds its way into themarket through commission house channels. 

Making Plain Goodsfor Future Orders

It is the policy of most cotton mills, and certainly of those makingplain goods, to run steadily all the year round, and thus the commissionagent, whether he has secured advance orders on the goods or not, hasconstantly flowing into his hands an assured stream of merchandise whichmust eventually, when sold, pay him a commission. Thus the securing of agood account means an assured source of revenue to the commission agent. 

There are no more important selling organizations for textiles than thesedry goods commission houses, many of them having an immense andprofitable turnover, and their businesses are conducted on a very highplane of efficiency, and probity, although, in itself, there are manyevils attendant upon this method of the distribution of merchandise, andwhich exercise at times a most adverse influence upon the well being ofthe mills whose product is thus disposed of. 

Strength of AgentsMakes "Paper" Acceptable

It is evident that no ordinary capital would be sufficient for thesupplying of money on call to mills in the immense quantity needed, andit is here that the banker's capital is called into use. The commissionhouse is usually a concern of substantial means, sometimes very rich, andnearly always of a financial standing, which will give it, on its ownaccount, an assured credit. At certain times of the year the calls formoney from the mills are greater than at other times, and as shipmentscome forward, and advances are required, the commission house, in orderto put itself in funds, will issue a series of its own notes inconvenient sized amounts, $5, 000 to $10, 000 each, for instance, and willoffer these for sale, through its note broker. 

This paper, which commands an advantageously low rate of interest, andwhich is issued for convenient periods of time, averaging perhaps fourmonths, is much sought after by banks and other institutions in primarymarkets and throughout the country wishing to invest current funds in asafe and not unprofitable medium. This paper is so acceptable to banksnot only because the credit of the issuing firm is behind it, but alsobecause it is known that the money which is obtained for the notes willbe lent out to mills on ample collateral. The issuing house is in aposition so entirely safe that hardly ever can a question arise as to itsability to take care of its borrowings. 

CHAPTER V

Financing Cotton and Cotton Cloth

No industry shows better than the cotton industry the economic importanceof banking service. No industry, perhaps, utilizes to such a completeextent the modern instruments of credit, nor is so dependent upon theseinstruments for its proper functioning. At no point in the progress fromseed to cloth is the capital represented by the cotton necessarily oreven customarily tied up. And not only may the cotton itself at any stagebe the basis of credit accommodation, but also, the actual added valuewhich the labor of any factor in the chain may give to the cotton mayitself be realized upon in advance. The credit possibilities of theindustry have grown with the admission of acceptances to rediscount inthe Federal Reserve Banks, and this admissibility has likewise played apart in the present growth of the warehouse system, the lack of which wasa handicap to the industry in past years. 

Credit Necessary from Seedto Finished Product

In considering the raw cotton and the cloth market it was necessary toinclude some account of the financial and banking processes involved inthe various commercial transactions undertaken. It is perhaps advisable, however, even at the risk of some repetition, to give a quick survey ofthe financial and credit aspects of the industry as a whole from the timethe cotton is placed in the ground up to the actual sale to the cutter-upor the jobber. 

The utilization of credit begins, as we have seen, with the very plantingof the crop. Many of the growers, even those who own their farms, are menof limited means, and are not able to pay for the necessaries of life andof labor during the long growing season. The country storekeeper, accordingly, in return for a lien on the crop, allows them credit at hisstore, usually charging interest based on the monthly statement of theirledger accounts. He in turn receives the necessary accommodation for hisown purchases from the local bank, or from the local buyer or factor withwhom he is affiliated. The high prices prevailing during the past fewyears have undoubtedly changed to some extent the small grower'sfinancial position. 

Cash for the GrowerFrom the Local Bank

The larger growers, or the great corporations which let out cotton landsto renters, usually operate the stores in their villages upon the samebasis, credit being advanced against the renter's share of the growingcrop. Even these large corporations are seldom able to meet the heavydemands of the growing season without recourse to the credit service ofthose to whom they sell their cotton, or to the local banks. The banks, or buyers, in turn discount at least a proportion of the commercial paperthus created with their correspondent banks in New York, Boston, or otherfinancial centers. This credit arrangement, it will be seen, is almostentirely based on a moral risk, the lien being made upon the growingcotton which cannot be liquidated until it is grown, picked, and ginned. 

When the crop is picked, it is weighed by the merchant before it isginned, and the farmer is credited on the merchant's books with theamount due him, the balance in his favor being given him in cash. Hisconcern with the cotton is thus ended. In the event that he is able tofinance himself through the season he takes the cotton directly to thegin, and has it ginned and baled there, paying the ginnery for theoperation, and selling the cotton directly to a local buyer and the seedto an oil mill. If the gin warehouse is available, and he desires to waitfor a more favorable opportunity to sell, he may store the cotton, takinga gin receipt for it, against which the cotton will eventually bedelivered. The gin receipt may be collateral for a loan from a cottonfactor, or from a local bank. 

Thus, it will be seen that the grower receives accommodation throughouthis season, and is paid cash for his product when it is delivered. Thisarrangement puts a heavy strain upon the cotton buyers, particularly uponthose who deal in large lots for the mills. The method by which thebuyers pay the growers is thus described:

The buyers make arrangements with the local bankers where the gins arelocated for the payment of the cotton, the banks furnishing the actualcash against tickets issued by the buyer's representatives, holding thetickets in question as their collateral in the meantime. When asufficient amount of cotton has been accumulated the local banker, at therequest of the buyer's agent, delivers the tickets in question to thelocal agent of the railroad, who in turn issues a bill of lading coveringthe shipment to the compress point, which then is attached to the draftdrawn by the buyer's agent upon the buyer's head office, which draftincludes the price paid for the cotton plus interest and exchange chargedby the local banker, who is reimbursed for the amount of the draft thusdrawn. When this cotton is ready for export (or for shipment to the millin the United States) local bills of lading, covering shipment from pointof origin to compress point, are exchanged by the cotton buyer's bankerfor local bills of lading to port or for through bills of lading. 

[Illustration: "_Picked 100 pounds today_"]

When cotton is bought at compress points, compress receipts instead oftickets are delivered to the local banker, who pays for the cotton aspurchased by the buyer's representative from time to time. When asufficient amount of cotton is ready for shipment the compress receiptsare exchanged by the banker for local bills of lading to port (or tomill), or through bills of lading, as the case may be. These bills oflading are attached to the draft drawn by the representative on the headoffice of the buyer, the local bank being reimbursed for the amount thusdrawn. 

Buyers must necessarily hold great quantities of cotton in storage, forthey buy whatever cotton is offered, and must sell, as we have seen, certain grades and qualities to the mills in order that they may weavethe cloth for which their orders call. Cotton must, therefore, be held instorage, either at the compress points, which is usual, or at warehousesoperated by factors, or by independent corporations, or in their ownwarehouses. 

While the buyers by cash payments are concentrating the cotton necessaryto fill their domestic or foreign orders, their need for funds is apressing one. Their arrangements with local banks we have seen. When thecotton is shipped, the local bank, by means of drafts on the buyer's headoffice, is relieved of the burden it has been carrying, but the cottonstill represents capital, and if that capital is to continue to earn itswages it must be the basis for credit. The factors and large banks in NewYork or Boston, which have been assisting the local bank, must now assistthe buyer and the warehouseman. The methods by which this burden isshifted to the larger banks are varied, and we can consider only one ortwo of their aspects. 

Same Mills Pay Cash, RelievingFactors of Burden

Some of the larger New England mills pay cash for the cotton which isshipped to them, buying sufficient in the season to carry them through, or nearly through, the year. Their buyers, therefore, need support, ifthey need it at all, only during the period of concentration. They mayhave their private banking arrangements, and may be able to utilize theirwarehouse receipts or bills of lading, or their mere notes based uponmixed collateral, for an advance of sixty to seventy-five per cent. Ofthe value of the cotton, the line having been arranged in advance. Creditmay be obtained by the buyer directly from the warehouseman, who thusbecomes a factor in his own right, being supported by arrangementspreviously made with his own bank. Credit may also be obtained from abank, upon bills of lading which are exchanged for warehouse receiptswhen the cotton is delivered at the port or at any warehousing point; orthe credit obtained from the bank may be settled and a new credit openedwith the warehouseman when the cotton is shifted from cars to storage. 

Warehousemen as Factors ofGrowing Importance

The growing importance of the warehouseman has been mentioned. Hisservices have developed with the need of mills for greater credit, andtheir unwillingness to tie up their working capital in cotton held intheir own warehouses. Mills which formerly bought all their year's supplyduring the buying season, so-called, now take their cotton fromwarehouses as they want it, buying it from their buyers, and makingpayment according to the individual standing arrangements. The advent ofthe warehouseman who is either a banker, or closely affiliated with abank, has undoubtedly done much to make the financing of cotton a moreelastic and feasible proposition, distributing the risk over a widercircle and making credit more readily available at any point in thesuccession. 

[Illustration: _Weighing gin bales in a ginnery yard_]

[Illustration: _Cotton warehouses in the South_]

The mill, we have seen, frequently pays cash for its raw stock, or elsebuys upon short term notes. The average mill does not have a workingcapital large enough to enable it to tie up the thousands of dollarsnecessary for such a proceeding, as well as the funds which mustconstantly be paid out for wages, for operation expenses of all kinds, for upkeep, and all other overhead. Mills, as a matter of fact, arefrequent borrowers, either from general banks, or from textile banks orfactors, or from their selling agents, who, as we have seen, combinetheir primary and original function of selling with that of supplyingfinancial assistance. 

Mills which purchase cotton from their buyers and pay cash, orapproximately cash, for it, usually buy such cotton to fill orders whichthey have already received from their selling agents. They may, incertain instances, obtain an advance from their agents of a proportion ofthe whole selling price of the order, and out of that advance pay for thepurchase of cotton, or they may hold the cotton in warehouses, using itonly as needed, and putting up the warehouse receipts as collateral forloans. 

The raw cotton itself, however, represents only a portion of the mill'soperating expenses and it cannot be the entire basis for financialoperations of the magnitude often needed. These broader financial wantsmay be met out of the prospective selling price of the cloth by means ofloans from the selling agent; or, they may be met by direct relationswith a commercial bank, which may make loans on ordinary collateral, onacceptances, or, as frequently happens in the case of mills of undoubtedintegrity, on the mere note of the company operating the mill. 

Selling Agent May ShiftBurden to Banks

When the burden is assumed by the selling agent, or factor, he in turnmay shift it to the bank, either by indorsing the note of the mill, or byindorsing the note of the purchaser of the cloth or by borrowing directlyfrom the bank on his own paper. 

The converter, as a rule, is not a factor, but a merchant pure andsimple, seeking accommodations from a factor or a bank as his needs mayrequire it. Inasmuch as he usually buys for cash or on short-term notes, and sells to jobbers or retailers upon more extended terms, his needs arefrequently heavy. His relation with his factor may be, and frequently is, upon the basis of accounts receivable, or he may borrow upon his owncollateral, or, if he is counted an "A1" risk, upon his unsecured note. 

These, in brief are the financial steps in the progress of cotton fromthe grower to the jobber. A cursory view is all that is possible, becausein the words of a textile banker of standing "every textile bankingtransaction is a law unto itself. " Yet enough has been said to show theall-important part which banking plays in the cotton industry, and toindicate how dependent are the turning of wheels and the distribution ofcotton and of cloth upon the credit which banks and bankers are able toprovide. 

Factors and Their WideFinancial Service

Frequent use has been made of the word factor, and no adequate definitionof its meaning has yet been given. The factor is, briefly, the commercialbanker of the industry, and his duty is to provide, at any stage of thecotton process, the financial assistance which may be necessary, eitherfrom his own resources or through his affiliations with some large bank. It is true, of course, that some factors work only with those dealing inraw stock, and some confine their services to mills. Some factors arecotton buyers, some are selling agents, some deal with buyers and somedeal with selling agents. Some are employed only by the mills. Recently, however, the tendency has been to develop under one roof a unitinstitution capable of handling every textile banking transaction. Itwill be interesting to enumerate here, briefly, the various functions andfacilities of one such institution:

 1. It makes loans to cotton buyers and to mills on cotton held in warehouses or in transit. 

 2. It checks the credit of the mill's prospective customers. 

 3. It cashes accounts receivable. 

 4. It makes advances against merchandise for the account of mill, converter, or jobber. 

 5. It finances merchandise and raw material requirements, and current operations. 

 6. It deals in acceptances, specializing, of course, upon paper arising out of transactions in the textile industry. 

 7. It maintains an Industrial Department, which includes:

 (a) the services of a consulting architect, expert in mill construction. 

 (b) the services of a production engineer, skilled in the laying out of plants in the line of greatest efficiency, and in diagnosing and correcting the production mistakes of an inefficient mill. 

 (c) information as to the newest mill practice, which it is ready to provide for its clients and others. 

 (d) readiness to assist customers in the expansion of their business either by financing new mill construction or by providing sales representatives in other countries. 

 (e) maintenance offices abroad, either for the buying or selling of textiles or equipment, or raw materials, or for the complete and direct financing of such transactions. 

CHAPTER VI

American Cloth in Foreign Markets

We have seen that the American cotton grower supplies more than half ofthe world's demand for raw cotton. The cotton manufacturer in the UnitedStates is in no such position. This is not to say that American cottongoods are not exported in very considerable amounts. From the inceptionof the industry in this country varying percentages of the total producthave been sent abroad. The following table, taken from the United StatesStatistical Abstract (1910) shows the average annual exports of cottongoods for the five year periods named, expressed in millions of dollars:

 _Uncolored _Colored _Total_ Cloth_ Cloth_ _Other_ 1856-60 $7. 5 $2. 4 $2. 3 $2. 8 1861-65 3. 7 . 4 . 9 2. 4 1866-70 4. 1 . 9 . 3 2. 8 1871-75 3. 1 1. 7 . 6 . 7 1876-80 10. 0 6. 1 2. 6 1. 2 1881-85 13. 0 8. 0 2. 9 2. 1 1886-90 12. 4 7. 4 3. 2 1. 6 1891-95 13. 3 7. 7 3. 0 2. 5 1896-1900 20. 4 11. 6 4. 4 4. 3 1901-05 31. 3 17. 2 7. 0 7. 0 1906-10 35. 1 16. 8 7. 2 11. 0

The irregularity of the export trade, as shown by these figures, has beenexplained on several grounds, the chief factors being, apparently, thefluctuations in the prosperity and consequently in the buying power ofthe home market, and the pressure upon the home market exerted by therapid growth of cotton manufacturing in the South. 

The normal position of the United States as an exporter of cotton goodsis shown by the following table, which gives the exports of the chiefmanufacturing countries in the year before the war (the figures for 1915are also given because they show the changes which had already begun):

 1913 1915

 United Kingdom $618, 000, 000 $418, 000, 000 Germany 117, 000, 000 30, 100, 000 France 78, 000, 000 60, 000, 000 Japan 58, 000, 000 95, 800, 000 United States 55, 500, 000 60, 200, 000 Switzerland 50, 300, 000 65, 800, 000 Italy 47, 800, 000 30, 500, 000 India 38, 900, 000 27, 300, 000 Holland 30, 900, 000 Austria Hungary 27, 800, 000 Belgium 23, 700, 000 Russia 22, 500, 000 19, 700, 000[B] Spain 8, 300, 000 17, 400, 000 China 1, 400, 000 2, 100, 000

----- [B] Eleven months. 

Thus, despite the very remarkable growth which had taken place between1910 and 1913, the United States ranked fifth among the nations exportingcotton goods. The reasons for this might be summed up in almost a word. The attractiveness and rapid growth of the home market provided an outletfor practically the whole output of American mills. With high pricesprevailing in the home market, the manufacturer was not called upon toexert himself to stimulate sales in regions where competition wouldinevitably be keen and profits small. 

Minor Handicaps toTrade Development

Supporting this main objection there have been others. Until recently thebanking facilities abroad were insufficient to the needs of a greatercommerce; and shipping facilities, in pre-war days, were not such as tomake regular shipments possible to many foreign markets. Over theseconditions manufacturers had not direct control, but there were othermatters in which their own short-comings were all too evident. There islittle need to list again the familiar complaints, known to every readerof Commerce Reports and the export magazines. Faulty packing andinsufficient attention to orders were the most frequent. The former wasundoubtedly due to inexperience, and the latter to the tendency of themanufacturer or merchant to consider the foreign market as a place fordisposing of a surplus unsalable at home. To this attitude may also beattributed the frequency with which shipments for which orders had beenaccepted have been delayed or overlooked altogether. 

[Illustration: _Compress bales awaiting export on a Savannah wharf_]

The foreign market remained for the American manufacturer a prize sodistant and of such questionable value that he was simply not willing tomake the effort and spend the money that would be necessary to competewith British, German, French, and other sellers. He would have had toknow local customs and tastes, and all the details that he had soarduously acquired a knowledge of for the home market. The time was notripe. 

U. S. Export TradeAs Affected By War

The war served to disarrange the system of cotton cloth distribution ofthe whole world. It is now a commonplace to say that the United States, by the cutting off of the usual sources of supply, succeeded for thefirst time in entering in force markets which hitherto had been closed. It would probably be truer to say that foreign buyers, finding itimpossible to secure their customary supply from their regular sources, came to the United States and asked American manufacturers to supplytheir imperative wants. 

Just what this meant is found in the statement that while in 1913 ourtotal exports of cotton goods amounted to about 445, 000, 000 yards, in1917 the figure was about 690, 000, 000 yards, an increase of fifty-fiveper cent. The increase, moreover, has been in the colored cottons, theuncolored cloths showing an actual decrease. 

The United Kingdom, during 1917, exported nearly 5, 000, 000, 000 yards ofcloth, so there is no immediate prospect that the United States will be adangerous competitor for that country, except in a few limited lines andin a few markets. The chief gain to the American cotton industry broughtby the war was the opportunity it gave merchants to introduce their goodsabroad at a time when loss was next to impossible. Operating at anassured profit they were able to learn the markets without the long anddiscouraging fight which would have been necessary had the competitivepower of the other nations been at full force. If, as seems likely, theeconomic forces which projected the United States so suddenly anddramatically into the world's markets shall continue to operate, then thefuture will see a further development of our sales. 

Future of Foreign SalesAnd Probable Markets

Our best and most permanent markets are probably to be found in suchcountries as Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Central and South America, and, to a certain extent, Canada and Australia, and parts of Asia andAfrica. To be sure, competition will have to be met both from Europeancountries and from Japan, whose development in the cotton industry inrecent years has been nothing short of phenomenal. She has practicallydoubled the number of her spindles in the last ten years, and hercompetition has already been felt, for instance, in China, where Americangray goods have been practically eliminated from the market. Othergrowing markets for Japanese cotton goods are South Africa, Australia, India, and the west coast of South America. 

In Cuba and the Philippine Islands, the United States has the advantageof a preferential tariff agreement and excellent shipping facilities. InCanada and Australia our cotton goods are popular but the tariff dutiesare in favor of Great Britain. In the Dutch East Indies there is atpresent a good opportunity for getting a foothold in the white goodstrade. Argentina has lately been our best market for cotton goods, and asthe imports of cotton products into that country amounted to $65, 000, 000in 1916, this trade is worth the intensive efforts which are now beingmade to clinch it. 

Future DevelopmentUp to Merchants

On the west coast of South America, as in the Manila market, there areestablished American trading firms that are doing extensive developmentwork and their efforts have produced favorable results. In the otherLatin-American markets there are practically no local American firms andin none of them have the possibilities of the trade been more thantouched. 

The general opinion seems to be that if the United States is to keep whatshe has gained by the war in the cotton goods trade the same care andaggressiveness will have to be shown in the foreign as in the domestictrade. England's position today as the foremost exporter of cottonmanufactures is the result of careful study of foreign markets and theirrequirements, of catering to the tastes of the people, of aggressiveadvertising, of competent foreign salesmen, of reliability in fillingorders, of good packing, and of more or less liberal credit terms. Manufacturers in the United States will have to follow the same procedureif this country is to keep her present position in international trade. 

CHAPTER VII

Some of the Grower's Problems

Early in the spring, the farm hands begin the work of getting the seedbeds ready. Upland fields have to be terraced, ditched, and drained by anelaborate process before the work is well begun. Plowing and sub-soilingare the least of the planter's worries. He must often chop last year'sstalks with a disc harrow or with a stalk cutter. The spike tooth or thedisc harrow must work again after the plowing is finished. It iscustomary to plant cotton in a slightly raised bed, in order thatthinning may be more easily done, and that the soil may be more quicklywarmed. Much planting is still done by hand, one man dropping the seedsin the long straight furrow and another following close behind him with ahoe, covering them up; but of late years the one-horse planter and thetwo-horse combined lister and planter have come into vogue, and, now thatthe tractor is both cheap and serviceable, it is possible to plant two ormore rows at a time. 

The Long Season ofIntensive Cultivation

When the tiny seedlings first appear above the fragrant mellow soil, theplanter's work is well begun, but it is only begun, for then comes theseason of cultivating and thinning out. As soon as there are two or threeinches of growth, the first cultivation takes place. How many times thefield is cultivated depends on the planter, the nature of the soil, theavailability of labor and other factors. But the general rule is, themore cultivations, the more cotton. The first cultivation scrapes awaythe soil from the plants, leaving them on a small ridge, where thethinning-out process can easily be done with a hoe. The stalks are leftfrom fifteen to twenty inches apart in the hill, the rows being usuallyabout three and a half feet apart. The next cultivation, usually with asweep, pushes the soil back against the plants. Then begins the farmer'sfight against the weeds, each of which seems sturdier and harder toeradicate than its predecessor. Usually cultivation must take place aboutevery three weeks. 

In June, on the average, the bell-shaped blossoms appear. On the firstday they are cream colored or white; on the second day, they change to abeautiful wild-rose pink, deepening toward evening to a deeper magenta orcarnation. On the third day they fade completely, and the development ofthe boll begins. 

The Many Enemiesof the Growing Boll

Of the plants upon which humanity depends, the various species of thegenus Gossypium have probably more enemies, and more relentless enemies, than any other. Besides army worms, cut worms, locusts, green flies, leafbugs, blister mites, and several others, nature has produced and renderedextremely prolific and hardy, these two particular pests, the boll weeviland the boll worm. It is said that the collective attacks of all theinsects which feed upon cotton cost the country in the neighborhood of$60, 000, 000 every year at pre-war prices. The little gray beetle that theworld knows as the cotton boll weevil is responsible for most of this. The mother weevil lays her eggs in the bud. As the grubs from the eggsdevelop, the bud drops. If a weevil arrives on the scene after the bollshave begun to form, she lays her eggs in those with a fine indifference. These bolls will not drop, but the grubs ruin the cotton they contain. There have been numerous investigations and experiments made to develop avariety of cotton impervious to the weevil's attacks, as well as to findanother insect willing to meet him in combat and overcome him. Guatamalancotton is said to be immune and efforts are being made to transplant itto the United States. A small ant-like creature called a "kelep" has alsobeen found, which attacks, kills and devours the weevil, but, unfortunately, the kelep prefers a warmer clime, and pines away and diesin even the mild winters of the cotton belt. The boll worm is verysimilar to the corn worm with which all housewives are familiar, andindeed corn is its favorite diet. But cotton will do in a pinch, and, next to the weevil, he ruins more cotton than any other pest. The bollweevil cost the country about $25, 000, 000 yearly, pre-war prices, and theboll worm about $12, 500, 000 yearly, enough to justify an even greaterexpenditure for investigation and eradication than has yet been made. 

Despite the ravage of insects and diseases, when a well-tended field ofcotton is ripening, one would think from the number of bolls per plant, that the owner's fortune was surely made. Unfortunately, the plants shedbolls as well as buds and flowers, in great numbers. It has frequentlybeen noted that even well-fertilized plants upon good, carefullycultivated soil, will mature only fifteen to twenty per cent. Of thebolls produced. 

[Illustration: _Cotton blossoms and bolls at various stages of growth_]

The planter will tell you that he would be willing to stand the bollweevil, the dropped bolls, the extra cultivations, and all the remainderof it, if he could only be sure that cotton which did mature would bepicked when it should be picked, and picked with rapidity and care. Picking is the most laborious, as it is the most picturesque operation onthe plantation. Many types of machine pickers have been introduced, butthere are few planters who will admit that any of them suits hisparticular needs. Now, as a hundred years ago, the picking is done byhand. It is a simple operation, so simple that children ten years old cando it, and women excel in it. But the best pickers rarely average morethan a hundred pounds a day, and most of them pull much less. Carelesswork plays its part, too, for cotton is easily dropped from the boll andsoiled or lost altogether. Leaves and twigs as well as the shell of theboll frequently cling to the fiber, and are picked with it, and all thesethings tend to dirty and discolor it, and lessen its marketability. Itrequires about three pounds of cotton with the seed in it, as picked, toproduce one pound of ginned or lint cotton. 

There were in the United States, in 1917, a total of 24, 272 ginneries, ofwhich 3, 921 were idle. Each active gin produced an average of 526 balesrunning bales of cotton. The number of gins shows a tendency to decreaseevery year, not rapidly, but surely, and this despite the oppositetendency of the crop. The Whitney gin of the old days has been improvedbeyond the dreams of its inventor. He boasted that one man could do asmuch with his machine as ten men without it. Today's gin averages aboutfive bales a day--a quantity which the negro of old would find difficultto turn out in a year. 

To the gin then, which is located either on the plantation or in theimmediate neighborhood, the mule drawn wagons, driven by negroes as arule, bring their loads of cotton. 

[Illustration: _Gin bale and compress bale showing reduced bulk oflatter_]

As the downy lint, pulled from the tenacious seeds, rolls into thereceiving bin of the gin, the huge compressors are put to work. Thecoarse jute bagging is on hand, and the steel straps spread out. The ginbalers as a rule turn out a bale measuring approximately 28 by 56 by 42inches, and weighing approximately 500 pounds including twenty pounds ofbagging and straps. The cotton, in being separated from its seeds, haslost about two-thirds of its weight. But the first process in the longseries that manufacturing entails has been completed, and the cotton isready to begin its long journey to the mill. It is usually carted to thenearest railroad station, and from there shipped to the compressingpoint. 

The small farmer almost always gets his money for the cotton as it leavesthe gin. His interest in it, therefore, is ended when the buyer therepays him the current price. The cotton is a market commodity from thattime forth. 

The compress is a large and powerful hydraulic press, whose function isto force the loosely packed gin bale into a density that will make itshandling by the railroads, ships, and warehouses more easy andeconomical. The compresses are frequently owned by the railroads. 

Gin Bales andCompress Bales

Before being compressed, the bales are sorted according to grade, and arethen compressed into a smaller sized bale, measuring approximately 28 by56 by 18 inches, with a density of from twenty-eight to thirty pounds asquare foot. It is this bale which is handled from that time forth, whether it be for export, for consumption in Northern or Southern mills, or whether, as sometimes happens, it is shipped from place to place asmarket conditions change, and the price offered makes reshipmentprofitable. 

Movement forImproving the Bale

It is encouraging to note that the war brought about, under Governmentauspices, a very definite movement for the improvement of the bale. Theproposal demands the installation of high pressure baling machines at thegin, capable of producing a bale with a density of thirty-five pounds acubic foot. The trading unit in cotton is one hundred bales, and such acompression would mean that one hundred bales could be loaded into asingle freight car, and shipped directly to the export point orwarehouse. The present practice requires three cars to carry the ginnerybales to the compressor, and two cars to carry the compressed bales tothe port, warehouse, or mill. The saving in freight and handling isobvious. It needs only a glance at the photograph of the two bales sideby side to see the possible saving in waste and "city crop, " or tare. Theobstacles in the way of such an improvement are those which face anyrevolutionary change in commercial methods. Established practice, invested capital, and the natural conservatism of human nature militateagainst quick improvement. 

CHAPTER VIII

In the Cotton Mill

The manufacture of cotton cloth may be divided into five departments:

 1. Preparatory processes: Opening, carding, combing, and drawing. 

 2. Spinning. 

 3. Spooling, warping, sizing, slashing, entering or drawing-in. 

 4. Weaving. 

 5. Converting and finishing, including bleaching, mercerizing, dying, printing, and finishing. 

Before the cotton fiber can be spun into the yarn from which the cloth iswoven, the bales must be broken open, the impurities removed, and thefibers arranged so that they are parallel and contain no bunches ortangles. Care in these processes has become more and more necessary andimportant as the demand for a higher quality of cloth, possessing greaterstrength and evenness, has been developed. Hence, some of the mostelaborate, complex, and admirable machinery in the mill is that devotedto these preparatory processes. The principle involved is always that ofthoroughly cleaning the material, then opening it so that every fibershall be thoroughly separated from its fellows, and then straighteningout the fibers, no matter what types of machines may be used. 

Conveying FiberBy Air Blast

The heavy laps of cotton are first thrown directly from the bale into thebreaker, and the cotton is then usually blown through large pipes fromthe room in which the bales are broken to the room in which the openersare located. 

The functions of the opener are two. The first is to clean from thecotton the dirt and bits of leaf, pod, and foreign substances, which mayhave clung to the fiber as it passed through the gin back on theplantation. The second is to roll the cotton into a more or less regular"lap, " as it is called. 

The EnergeticOpener At Work

As the cotton goes into the opener (see diagram on following page), dustyand dirty, it is seized by strong teeth fastened upon a large cylinder(A), revolving rapidly, and is flung by centrifugal force against an irongrid (B) time after time. Sometimes there is a strong current of airblowing through the tangled mass, helping to loosen the particles. Thedirt comes out through the grid and is carried away, while the lintitself, after being carried around an indefinite number of times, gradually works its way along a channel, and finally out between twolarge rollers (C), which compress it once more, so that it is, in effect, a sheet of batting. This sheet, or lap, is rolled up in a large roll (G), which may be two or three feet in diameter, and is then ready for thefirst doubling or blending process. In mills where strength and evennessof yarn are at a premium, the sheets from three or four laps may be fedthrough another opener, usually called a "scutcher, " which breaks themall apart again, mixes up the fibers, cleans out more of the dirt, andproduces a more even lap. 

The cotton, as it comes from the opener and the scutcher, is much cleanerand more attractive. It begins to look like the riches it contains. 

[Illustration: _Cross-section diagram of opener_]

To convey the heavy opener-lap from the opener to the carding room, themore modern mills are doing away rapidly with hand-power, and carry thelap on a sort of travelling mono-rail conveyor. 

The fibers of the lap which comes from the opening room are by no meansparallel, but lie in all directions just as they happened to come fromthe grid of the opener. The function of the card is to straighten them, and at the same time to remove those which are knotted or immature and ofa length below that required for the yarn to be spun, and to take outpractically all of the impurities which may have escaped in the openingoperations. 

The principle of carding is one of the oldest of textile mechanicalprinciples, and all the improvements that have been made have been indevelopments rather than in basic ideas. Hargreaves, inventor of thejenny, and Sir Richard Arkwright both expended their ingenuity upon it, the latter seeming to have been the first to provide a carding machineoperated by other than hand-power. The basic principle involved is thestraightening out of the fibers by combing or brushing them with wirebrushes or cards. 

[Illustration: _"Scutchers" at work_]

In the revolving flat card, which dominates the field today, there are, as a rule, three principal cylinders. The lap passes first under thesmallest of the three, called the taker-in, which is covered with veryfine saw-teeth all in one long strip of steel, wound and fixed spirallyin the surface of the cylinder. The taker-in receives the cotton from afeed-roller (C) that turns above a smooth iron plate (D) called the feedplate. The saw-teeth comb the fibers which are imbedded, so to speak, inthe lap, and deliver the loose ones to the second cylinder, which is thelargest of the group. This main cylinder is covered with wire teeth allbent at exactly the same angle. The cotton clings to them, and is carriedaround to the top of the cylinder, where it is engaged by teeth on therevolving-flat card which are bent in the opposite direction. This"card-clothing" arranged in strip, crosswise on a travelling lattice, moves in the same direction as the cylinder but moves very slowly, and sothe fibers are carded between the two sets of wire points, the short andimmature fibers remaining on the card wires of the lattice and theperfect and now almost entirely parallel ones being carried over from themain cylinder to the doffer cylinder, the third of the trio. From thisthey are removed by an oscillating comb (F), coming off in a light, fleecy lap, which is condensed through a funnel into a soft untwistedroping, or sliver, about the diameter of a man's thumb, and is thencoiled into a can, usually about 45 inches high by 8 inches diameter. 

[Illustration: _View of Modern Motor-Driven Opener Picker_]

The conveying of the sliver (pronounced with a long or short i) into thecan is in itself an exceedingly ingenious operation, although a verysimple one. The device is attached directly to the card, and is called acoiler. The sliver passes into it from the funnel. The hole from whichthe sliver emerges is off the center of a steel plate which revolvesslowly, so that the sliver, as it comes out, has an eccentric motionwhich causes it to fall into the can in regular coils. Tangling is thusprevented, and ease of handling secured. 

Combing Necessary inSpinning Fine "Counts"

Combing is necessary in the preparation of cotton for the spinning offine "counts" or coarser yarns where great smoothness and regularity aredesired. They are now quite extensively used in the United States, and itis significant of the trend of the industry here that the number israpidly growing. The first cotton comber was invented by a Frenchman ofAlsace named Heilmann. The patent was issued in 1845. Now there are onthe market other machines, both English and American, similar inprinciple but improved in many ways. 

[Illustration: _Revolving flat cards_]

The first of these preliminary processes is that which is done by thesliver-lapper. The slivers from 14 to 20 cans are drawn alongside-by-side, passing between three pairs of drawing rollers which willbe described later. From the drawing rollers the slivers now reduced insize, pass between two pairs of calendar rollers from which they emerge, not as a sliver, of course, but once more as a lap about a foot wide. These laps are usually passed to a ribbon lapper, where six of them areplaced end-to-end, and unrolled simultaneously, passed between four pairsof drawing rollers, and then superimposed, one upon the other, and, calendered once more, issued as a lap a little less than a foot wide. This process may be repeated as many times as the quality of the yarndesired may require, for each drawing process served to straighten thefibers and so to render the thread more even and capable of finerspinning. 

Combing is exactly what its name implies. The lap is actually raked by afine-tooth comb with needle-like teeth of steel ranging from 16 to 90 perinch. This involves breaking the lap again and the intricacy of thecomber rests in the mechanism which it employs for joining the separatedends. 

[Illustration: _Cross-section diagram of revolving flat card_]

Six or eight laps go through the machine at once, and the product iscombined, condensed, formed into a continuous sliver, and deposited oncemore into cans. The process is not a fast one at best, and the chiefcontribution of American inventors is in the direction of speed. Each nipcombs only 4/16 to 4/10 of an inch of fiber. The Heilman machine madeabout 85 or 90 nips per minute. The American improvement makes 130 to135. The width of the lap in the American machine is likewise increased, and the saving in labor, therefore, is considerable. English improvementshave been in the same direction, the resultant saving being almost asgreat. 

[Illustration: _Ribbon lappers_]

Though many of the processes already described might be called drawing, in a sense, insomuch as they involve a continual lengthening andstraightening of the lap or sliver, yet drawing in the strictest sensehas not yet begun. It may be done only once, for coarse and cheap yarn, or it may be repeated a half dozen or more times to produce the finer andmore expensive products. The frame for each repetition is slightlydifferent, but several types may be isolated. They are, in the order oftheir use, the drawing frame, the fly frame, or slubber, the intermediateframe, and the roving and jack frames. 

For fine counts the slivers from the comber, and for other grades thatwhich comes directly from the card, are taken, then to the drawing frame. The slivers from the cans, six or eight in number, are fed through oneaperture, and pass, thus combined, between several (usually four) pairsof rollers, so arranged that each succeeding pair revolves at a morerapid rate than that which preceded it. The last pair in the seriesrevolve probably six or eight times as fast as the first pair. Thiscombination of rollers pulls constantly on the more or less irregularslivers, rendering them always more nearly uniform in diameter anddensity, the thickness of one of the entering slivers serving tocounterbalance the thinness of the other. The drawing frame consistsusually of four or five "heads, " and the sliver, after it passes throughone of these "heads, " is put through a second one, along with otherslivers, so that the doubling and redoubling goes on constantly. There isan electric device to stop the machine when a sliver breaks, either atthe back or the front of the frame. 

[Illustration: _Combers at work in a mill spinning fine counts_]

From the last head of the drawing frame, the sliver passes to the flyframe or slubber, which not only continues the drawing and doubling, usually between three pairs of rollers, but through the aid of a devicewhich gives the sliver a slight twist and winds it, for the first time, upon a spindle. This device is known as the flyer, and is, roughly, aU-shaped piece of metal, which, revolving, inverted, over the spindle, gives the thread a slight lateral twist as it coils upon the spindle. Thelatter also revolves, but with a diminishing motion so that the amount oftwist may be kept uniform as the diameter of the coil upon the spindleincreases. The sliver, now being twisted, is called a sliver no longer, but the slubbing. 

The slubbing is passed between the rollers in pairs, the emerging productbeing less in diameter than the diameter of a single slubbing. Themachine combines the fourfold process of combination, attenuation, twisting and winding. There are more spindles upon this frame than uponthe slubber. 

The last drawing frame, except for very fine yarns spun from Egyptian orSea Island staples, is the roving frame, similar in principle to the lasttwo but containing still more spindles. It receives the rovings from theintermediate frame, combines two of them into one, twists them a littlemore, and winds them upon the spindle tubes. The Jack frame is similarexcept that its product is finer and smoother. 

[Illustration: _Sliver lappers in a Northern mill_]

It is interesting to note, however, that the majority of improvementshave been the fruit of the brains, not of Americans, but of Englishmen. Copeland points out that this may be due to the English desire to save inthe consumption of cotton, but that more probably it is due to thedevelopment of fine spinning in England, in which most of the machineshere described are chiefly valuable; and he ventures the prediction thatnow that American mills have definitely gone in for the finer counts, itmay be expected that engineers here will apply themselves to theimprovement of this machinery. 

[Illustration: _Drawing frames, turning slivers into roving_]

The "Mule" Versusthe Ring Spindle

Spinning is the final process which turns the cotton into firm, coherentyarn, sufficiently twisted, and ready for the loom. The twist given tothe thread by the previous machines has been only enough to make thefibers hold together. They are still comparatively loose and fluffy, andtheir tensile strength is slight. 

There are, in general, two types of spinning machines. The first, themule, an English product. The second, radically different, is entirelyAmerican. It was invented in 1828 by James Thorpe, and immediately foundsome favor, but it was not until the Civil War that it was received onequal terms with the mule. Today, however, it dominates in the UnitedStates, the comparative figures in 1917 being: ring spindles 30, 264, 074;mule spindles 3, 634, 761. The disparity is growing greater every year, andthe use of the ring is firmly established in other countries as well. Thefigures for 1907 were:

 _Mule_ _Ring_ England (1909) 39, 800, 000 7, 900, 000 Germany 5, 740, 000 3, 722, 000 France 4, 122, 000 2, 481, 000 Austria 2, 307, 000 1, 277, 000 Italy 1, 015, 000 1, 852, 000 Russia 1, 031, 000 1, 320, 000

The mule, by reason of the great size to which it has been developed, andthe impressiveness of its large, rhythmic motion, is one of the mostformidable of all cotton machines, as indeed it is one of the mostcomplex. It received its name from the fact that, performing twoprincipal functions--drawing and spinning--it was regarded as a hybrid, just as the mule is a hybrid cross between the horse and the donkey. 

In the mule (see diagram on page 53), which is a long and wide machine, carrying sometimes, in new models, as many as 1, 300 spindles, the drawingand twisting are not continuous but consecutive. The rovings (B) are heldon a creel (A) at the back of the machine, usually in three or fourtiers, or on long beams or spools. They pass from the creel, or spools, between three pairs of drawing rollers (C. ) Coming out of the rollers, they are fed to the spindles on the carriage which backs away from thecreel and recedes somewhat faster than the rovings are unwound. Thisreceding is the essential motion of the mule, for thus the cottonreceives its final drawing. The spindles, meanwhile, are revolvingrapidly, spinning the yarn. The twist goes first to the thin places wherethe least resistance is offered. Then, as the carriage carrying thewhirling spindles continues to back away, the thicker parts of thethread, being comparatively untwisted are pulled down to the averagediameter and are twisted in turn. The carriage usually runs back aboutsixty-three inches. At the termination of its run, or stretch, thespindles increase their speed until the twisting is completed and thecarriage starts on its return trip. This reverses the spindles, and thethread which has been wound upon them is unwound, the slack being takenup by one guide wire (D) while the other guides the thread to the windingpoint, and winds it up in the opposite direction on the cone-shaped copson the spindles. The rollers do not feed out more roving as the carriagereturns. Hence, there is no slack when the round trip is completed. 

[Illustration: _Slubbers, showing the U-shaped flyers_]

Except for the use of drawing rollers, there is little similarity betweenthe mule and the ring frame. The latter has no movable carriage, none ofthe splendid sweep of motion that makes the mule so fascinating towatch. The ring-frame is simple and business-like, and its speed isamazing. The bobbins holding the roving are placed directly over thespindles. Around each of the latter is a steel ring. There are at least112 spindles on each machine, and all the machine rings for the spindlesare fixed in a single frame. The upper edge of the ring is flanged, likea miniature railroad track, and snapped over the flange is a small butimportant C-shaped steel ring, called the traveler. 

How Thread is Spunon the Ring Spindle

When the machine is in operation (See diagram on page 56) each roving (H)leaving its bobbin, runs through the usual drawing rollers (G) thenthrough a guiding wire to the ring, where it is passed through itstraveler (B) which is always at the winding point on the spindle. As thespindle and the rollers revolve, the roving is fed out at a considerablyslower rate than the spindle takes it up, so that there is always atension on the thread. The whirling spindle thus pulls on the traveler, drawing it round and round on its flanged track (A). It revolves just alittle more slowly than the spindle and thus the yarn receives its twist. Meanwhile, the frame (C) on which the rings are fixed moves slowly up anddown, so that the winding is properly regulated. 

It is possible to operate the spindles at a remarkable speed. So perfectare the bearings which have been evolved that the average speed is tenthousand revolutions a minute, and on fine yarns it is sometimes 12, 000to 13, 000 revolutions. The speed is limited by only two factors: thefirst is the ability of the operator to make splicings when threadsbreak, and the second is the tendency of the traveler to fly off when thespeed is too high. The number of travelers consumed is high at best, andin a mill which has long been in operation the floor in the front of theframe is likely to be paved with the little steel rings which have fallenand been ground into the planks by the heels of the worker. 

[Illustration: _Diagram of mule_]

The battle between the advocates of the ring frame and those who favorthe mule is still on. For the American spinner the ring has undoubtedlymany advantages. Because it spins continuously, and not intermittently, it turns out about a third more yarn per operator. It is usuallyadmitted, however, that the thread from the mule is more even indiameter. Advocates of the mule say, moreover, that the thread from themule is softer and "loftier", and that cloth woven from it has a more"clothy" feel. But others say they can produce soft yarn with the ring. In the United States, where the labor cost is a vital item, thering-spindle has an assured place. 

[Illustration: _Mules at work_]

The yarn is now a finished product. It may be sold by the spinner to theweaver or it may be woven in the mill in which it is spun. Before it isready for the loom, however, there are a number of operations which mustbe completed. 

The yarn from the ring frame, or mule, is wound in a large cop, or on abobbin. It must be put upon spools before it can be warped. The spooleris a simple machine, but one that requires constant attendance. In thespooler, bobbins are placed upon holders or spindles, and the thread ispassed over a series of guides to the spool, up above. The spool revolvesat a high rate of speed, and the thread is wound evenly upon it. Theoperator must watch for broken threads, retie them, replace the emptybobbins by full ones and see that the empty ones are gathered upuninjured. She--the operator is usually a girl or woman--must be alertand active, and especially nimble fingered. 

[Illustration: _"Close-up" of Ring Spindle in American mill_]

One of the most important inventions, one that was received with acclaimby the American manufacturer, and one which actually reduced his laborcost on spooling no less than ten per cent. At one clip, is a tiny littlething that is held in the palm of the hand. This is the Barber knotter. When a thread breaks, the attendant places the two ends together in themachine and by the mere pressure of her thumb ties the knot much betterthan she could do it without the knotter. The economies which it effectsextend beyond the mere spooling, for better knots mean fewer breaks inthe warping process, and a better cloth at the end of weaving. 

The spools from the spooler are placed on a large frame, called a creel. The creels have an average capacity of about 600 spools, and there areusually 16 to 20 in one tier. The threads from the spools are drawnbetween the dents of an adjustable reed, then under and over a series ofrollers. From here they are led down to the beam, upon which they arewound. The revolving of the beam unwinds the yarn from the spools andwinds it regularly and evenly upon the beam itself. There is a device formeasuring the length of the warp wound, and stop motions for arrestingthe operation should a thread break or other accident occur. 

[Illustration: _Each operator at these spoolers has a Barber knotter onher hand_]

The yarn of the warp must usually be impregnated with a sizing which willsmooth out and stick down its furry surface and add as well to thetensile strength so that the strain of weaving may be withstood. For thisthe most effective and most generally used machine is the slasher, thechief feature of which is a roller, whose lower side is immersed in thesizing solution. Threads from the warp beam are run around this rollerthrough the solution and then dried, after which it is finally wound onanother beam for the loom. A considerable number of loom beams can befilled from one set of the warper beams mounted in the slasher. 

The lengthwise threads of a fabric are called the warp. The crosswisethreads are called the weft or filling. To make cloth, the warp and weftmust be interlaced with each other in a suitable manner. The operation iscalled weaving, the machine in which it is performed is, of course, theloom. The principal operations of weaving are as follows:

 1. Shedding, or the raising and lowering of the alternate threads of the warp, so that the weft may pass under and over them. This is done by means of the harnesses and their heddles. 

 2. Picking, or placing a thread of the weft between the warp threads so raised and lowered by means of the shuttle. 

 3. Beating-up, or pushing, each thread of the weft into its position close against the thread which has preceded it by means of the reed. 

 4. Letting-off, or permitting the warp to unwind from the beam only just as fast as is needed by the speed of the weaving. This is accomplished by friction bands and weights on the warp beam. 

 5. Taking-up, or winding upon a roller the cloth as it is manufactured. 

In addition to these primary operations, the loom has attachments forperforming several other functions, such as stop-motions for stopping theloom when warp or filling threads break, or when the shuttle fails tocross the loom completely; temples for holding out the cloth laterally asthe weaving proceeds; a mechanism--in the most modern looms--for changingthe shuttles, or the cops in the shuttles, as the weft thread on the copsbecomes exhausted, etc. 

[Illustration: _Diagram of ring spindle_]

The modern cotton loom, which automatically removes the filling bobbinswithout stopping the loom, is rapidly displacing the older types, and oneweaver can now attend to a surprisingly large number of looms, beinggreatly assisted also by the automatic warp and filling "stop motions. "

CHAPTER IX

The Finishing Operations

Following the manufacture of the cloth, come the operations necessary toprepare it for the market. These involve such treatments as bleaching, printing, mercerizing, dyeing, and finishing (in the narrow sense). 

The number of machines involved in these various processes rivals thenumber which are used in the actual spinning and weaving operations. 

Modern bleaching is a highly technical science, conceived and planned byengineers, and carried out with elaborate machinery by skilled workers. 

Gray cloth, as it comes from the loom, is of an unattractive color, adirty grayish yellow, and contains not only those impurities which it haspicked up on its journey through the mill but those inherent in itsnatural state as well, all totalling some five per cent. More or less, ofthe total weight. In addition there may be numerous bits of leaf from theboll which have clung to the fibers through all the processing, and whichappear finally in the cloth as little brownish specks, known to the tradeas motes. Finally, there is the sizing which was put into the warp. 

[Illustration: _Warping--The creel in the rear_]

Bleaching an IntricateChemical Process

In the bleaching of cotton, there is a series of operations which havefor their object the elimination of the waxy, fatty matters embodied inthe fiber, as well as any dirt which it may have acquired. Then, there isthe actual whitening and the bleaching of the cloth which destroys anycoloring matter which it may contain and finally there are treatmentsdesigned to neutralize the effect of the chemicals used in the bleaching. Thus, the sequence of treatments might be: first, boiling in plain water, which removes certain soluble substances; next, an extended boiling in astrong alkaline solution, which saponifies the waxy, fatty matters in thefiber, and thus removes them from the cloth or yarn. Third, a steeping ina bleaching solution--a solution of chloride of lime being largelyemployed for this purpose, and which treatment is known as the chemic. Next, after another thorough washing there is a treatment in dilutedsulphuric acid to neutralize the effects of the chemic, and finally thisis followed again by another thorough washing with possibly an additionalmild alkaline treatment. The nature and the method of all thesetreatments varies considerably, and depends upon the character of thegoods being treated, but, at the conclusion, if all has gone well, thecloth should be a good white and should not be impaired in strength. 

Singeing Necessaryin Some Finishes

For a certain class of goods, where a clean, smooth surface is required, it is desirable to singe the goods before the bleaching. This isaccomplished by passing the cloth, stretched out at full width, veryrapidly over heated plates, or through gas flames, so that the fine hairsor fuzz are singed off, but the fabric itself has not had time to takefire. Both sides may be singed and the goods may be passed more than oncethrough the flame. When yarns are singed, the threads are passed throughthe flame very rapidly, being unwound from one set of bobbins and woundup on another. 

[Illustration: _Front view of an automatic loom_]

In the dyeing operation the cotton piece goods pass through a series ofmachines, the goods being in rope form as already explained, so that anumber of pieces can be put into each machine, side by side. The washboxes, dye vats, etc. Are equipped with overhead rollers, by means ofwhich the goods, which have been sewn end to end, so as to make acontinuous string of them, pass out of the dye, over the roller and downinto the bath on the other side, continuing to circulate around thusuntil the desired results have been obtained. In addition to thepreparatory washing and boiling, mordanting and dyeing, there aresubsequent washings to free the goods from loose coloring matter, andother special treatments are frequently accorded them. 

Finishing in its special and restricted sense, implies a series oftreatments, such as stretching, starching, dampening, drying, pressing, smoothing, lustreing, glazing, stiffening, softening, and whatnot, whichare given to them according to the use to which they are to be put. 

The printing press is constructed with a large main cylinder (D), thesize being dictated by the number of colors which it must take care of. As the printing operation is a continuous one, there must be a continuousfeeding of the cloth, a continuous inking of the engraved rollers (C), and a continuous cleaning off of the unengraved surface after theinking. 

Under each roller, where it is fixed in its place in the press, is a longcopper trough or pan carrying the coloring material, and in the pan underthe roller, and extending into the coloring matter, is an intermediateroller known as the "furnisher" roller, and, as the press revolves, thiscovers the surface of the copper roller with a heavy film of coloring. The surplus coloring is scraped off as the roller revolves, by a long, sharp blade or knife, known as "the doctor, " and after the roller passesthis it is quite clean, no coloring remaining on it except that in theengraved portion. 

Each roller has its color pan with its own color in it. Then, as thecloth (A) passes between the main cylinder, properly covered by suitableintervening materials and the series of rollers, each roller in turnprints its own color, and, collectively, the finished pattern isproduced. 

[Illustration: _Diagram of cloth printing machine_]

The goods then pass into a drying room and are afterwards introduced intoa steaming chamber, where they are given a good steaming at a slightpressure. This steaming develops the colors and causes them to impregnatethe fibers more thoroughly. Subsequently, for good work, the goods shouldbe washed to get rid of the thickening matters that are mixed with thecoloring, and then the printing appears in all its beauty. 

Printing onFull Ground Colors

The foregoing briefly describes the processes of direct printing. In thiscase, the penetration of the colors to the opposite side of the goods isnot very good. If a solid and full ground color is needed both on theface and back of the goods, it can be had either by the "Resist" or"Reserve" method, or by the "Extract" or "Discharge" method. In the"Resist" method, when a white figure is wanted on a black or coloredground, the goods are first printed with some substance which will resistthe action of the dye stuffs. Then, when the goods are dyed, the treatedpart does not take the color and the substance used as a resist is washedout, and thus a white figure is obtained on a solid colored ground. 

In the "Discharge" method, the goods are first dyed in a solid color, andare then treated with certain chemicals which destroy the dyed colorwherever they touch the fabric, these chemicals being subsequently washedout where they have been applied, and thus again a white figure can behad in the colored ground. By the "Discharge" method, moreover, coloredfigures can also be printed on colored grounds, as certain colorings havebeen developed which are not affected by the discharge materials used, hence, a whole series of beautiful colors can be printed on goodspreviously dyed with black or colored grounds, each color being mixedwith a suitable chemical for discharging the ground color, and thus thecolors of the printed pattern come out as desired. 

Another important process which is applied to both cotton yarn and cottonfabrics is that known as mercerization, called after "Mercer" an Englishchemist who introduced the process. Cotton when subjected to the actionof strong, caustic alkali contracts violently, but when again stretchedand straightened it is found to have acquired a distinct silkiness ofappearance, and under the microscope the twisted ribbon-like fibers ofthe material--already referred to--will be found to have become straight, glossy and rodlike, just as a bicycle tire would appear after air wasblown into it. 

Cotton may be mercerized either in the yarn, warp, skein, or in thepiece, the first being more effective. The best and most satisfactoryresults are achieved when the material treated is made of fine longstaple cotton, either Sea Island or Egyptian, the shorter cottons beingrelatively much less improved by the treatment. The mercerizing does notdiminish the strength of the material, and gives to it a greater affinityfor dye stuffs. 

Internal Organizationof Cotton Mills

The foremen are specialists in their particular departments. Thewarehouseman, at one end, is a judge of cotton stock, and the foreman ofthe weaving room at the other knows how many automatic looms may safelybe trusted to each weaver on his staff. 

In between these two there are, according to the individual mill, a dozenor more other foremen, all reporting regularly to the superintendent, allcaptains of their own companies of workers, and all keen, in theinterests of their own reputations, to operate their departments asintelligently, as efficiently, and with as little friction with theirindividual operators as possible. For it is generally recognizedthroughout the cotton industry that profitable business depends as muchupon the whole-hearted cooperation of the wage-earners, as upon any othersingle factor. 

The Question ofIndividual Efficiency

As for the operators themselves, they are so varied, there are so manyproblems which they have to face, and such difficulties which those whoemploy and direct them have to solve, that anything like adequateconsideration is impossible. From the impersonal viewpoint, leaving outof account the human elements, the problems of wages, and the correlatedproblem of trade organization, there remains the question of individualefficiency. It is that which we have chiefly to consider. 

[Illustration: _Inspecting finished cloth_]

The number of men, women, and children employed in the cotton mills ofthe country has increased at a very high rate, but there has been aninteresting diminution in the proportionate percentage of women andchildren under sixteen years of age employed. 

The United States Census of Manufacturers gives the following figures:

AVERAGE NUMBER OF EMPLOYES IN AMERICAN COTTON MILLS

 _Men_ _Women_ _Children_ _Total_ 1870 42, 790 69, 637 22, 942 135, 369 1880 59, 685 84, 539 28, 320 172, 544 1890 88, 837 106, 607 23, 432 218, 876 1900 134, 354 123, 709 39, 866 297, 929 1910 190, 531 141, 728 38, 861 371, 120

In percentages these figures express themselves as follows:

 _Men_ _Women_ _Children_ 1870 31. 5 51. 4 17. 1 1880 34. 6 49. 0 16. 4 1890 40. 6 48. 7 10. 7 1900 45. 1 41. 5 13. 4 1910 51. 3 38. 2 10. 5

The question of nationality has had an important bearing upon thedevelopment of the industry in the United States. The constant influxinto the country of successive waves of immigration from the differentcountries of Europe has often served in a decade to change the wholecomplexion of the labor question. In the original New England mills, theemployees were of almost pure English stock. The sons and daughters ofthe Yankee farmers entered the mills, not as a permanent occupation, butmerely as a means of getting a start in life. 

Just before the Civil War, the Irish began to come rapidly, and theactual advent of that struggle saw a great number of the remainingnatives leaving for the army, or thrown out of work. When the fightingwas over they did not return, but the Irish came in even greater numbers. The next decade saw the arrival of the French Canadians in the NewEngland states, and there also came, in quick succession, natives ofItaly, and of the various states of eastern Europe. 

[Illustration: _Baled cloth being put aboard waiting freight cars_]

This change in the national complexion had two very important results. Itbrought into the country a constant stream of cheap labor, polyglot, andlacking in homogeneity, and consequently slow at first to unionize andstrike. This characteristic brought another in its train--a lack ofstability, and a proneness to transiency. The second result was hardlyless important. It meant that though labor was relatively plentiful, muchof it was unskilled. This lack of skill put a premium upon quantityproduction, and led to efforts to develop automatic machinery andlabor-saving devices of all kinds. It compelled most Americanmanufacturers to specialize upon the coarser kinds of yarns and cloths, made in simple weaves and patterns, in the making of which the minimumamount of skilled labor was required. 

Native Stockin Southern Mills

Conditions in the South were somewhat different. From the beginning, theemployes here have been almost entirely of native stock. They came from aclass which previously had little opportunity for any employment of aregular character outside of farming. When the mills were built thesefolks were given, for the first time, an opportunity for continuousemployment. Whole families entered the mills, fathers, mothers andchildren serving in different or in the same departments. The South atfirst specialized on ducks, twills, denims, and such coarse work. Now, however, there is a growing tendency to diversify the product. The reasonis found in the increasing capability of the workers, many of whom haveby now spent many years of their lives in the mills, and whose fathersbefore them were operatives. Unless present conditions change and theSouth becomes the mecca of immigrants--a development probably less likelynow than in the years before the war--there seems to be a strongpossibility that a class of operatives, rivalling eventually in skillthose of the English mill towns, will be developed. The stock is thesame, and the latent capabilities are all there. The determining factorswill probably be the economic changes of the next few years. 

A remaining factor in the organization of the mill is the size of theindividual plant, the number of spindles and looms it contains, thenumber of workers employed, etc. It is in just this particular that someof the most characteristic developments of the American industry arefound. About the time of the Civil War, the average New England mill hadless than ten thousand spindles. Today the average is probably betweenfifty and one hundred thousand, and perhaps nearer the latter figure thanthe former. Some of the mills have nearly, if not quite, a full millionspindles in several buildings. The average in the South is much less thanthe New England average. The industry in the older section is definitelylocalized, even to the extent of having whole towns devoted almostexclusively to the manufacture of single grades of cloth. In the Souththe mills are more widely scattered, advantage having been taken of laborsupply, water power, and other conditions. Local pride has sometimescaused the establishment of mills in regions economically unfitted forthem. Such mills do not long survive. The advantage of large scaleproduction has thus been seized chiefly by the New England mills, but thegenerally lower wages of the South have tended to equalize thesituation. 

[Illustration: _Original Whitney cotton gin, preserved in SmithsonianInstitute in Washington_]