It is evident that mills, which require certain even-running grades, could of course never buy their cotton on the Middling basis. For this reason, except in the few cases where they buy direct from the growers, mills purchase their requirements from dealers on the basis of samples. Selling to mills, as opposed to selling M/B, is known as selling on merit. Mills usually begin to buy in September and fill about 60% of their year’s requirements by January. Those manufacturers who use the high grades usually buy earliest because of the limited crop from which they must obtain their share. Cotton is ordinarily shipped soon after purchase and stored not by the merchant but at the mill. The recent growth of Southern warehouse companies, however, has caused mills to carry less cotton than formerly. Mills ordinarily pay for their cotton in three days.
We have now traced rapidly how the cotton is grown and marketed, and our next concern will be to follow what happens to it during the process of making it into goods. Deferring for the moment consideration of cotton export from the United States, we shall proceed in Chapter Two, to glance at the various aspects of Cotton Manufacture.
CHAPTER II
THE MANUFACTURE OF COTTON
1. History in the U. S.
Much has been written on the subject of the textile industry and perhaps even more still remains to be said. It is not the object of this brief survey to present a complete picture of all the stages of manufacture, but rather to place briefly before the reader a necessarily kaleidoscopic view of the various processes.
Slater’s Mills
Whitney’s Gin
Stimulus of War of 1812
Although the first cotton mill in the United States was founded in Rhode Island by Samuel Slater in 1790, Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin in 1793 marked the real beginning of the cotton growing and manufacturing industries in this country, because it solved the hitherto vexatious problem of separating the fibre from the seed. Nevertheless, until the war of 1812, this country exported almost all of its cotton to Great Britain, and imported from there its cotton goods. The war stimulated the textile industry for two reasons: first, because no British goods were available; and second, because it brought about the transference of New England capital from ships and commerce to home manufacturing industries. The census figures for 1805 show 4,500 spindles in the country; in 1825 there were 800,000.
Growth to 1860