Into the Society Islands Sea Island cotton was introduced about 1860-1870. Up to the year 1885 there was an average yearly export equivalent to about 2140 bales of 500 ℔, after which date the export practically ceased. The industry has, however, been revived, and in 1906 over 100 bales, valued at £1052, were exported.

(W. G. F.)

Marketing and Supply

In the days of slave-grown cotton, the American planters, being men of wealth farming on a large scale, consigned the bulk of their produce as a rule direct to the ports. Now, however, a large proportion of the crop is sold to local Moving the harvest to the ports. store-keepers who transfer it to exporting firms in neighbouring cities. The cultivators, whether owners of the plantations, as is usual in some districts, or tenants, as is customary in others, are financed as a rule by commission agents. The decline of “spot” sales at the ports, partly but not entirely in consequence of the appearance of the small cultivator, has proceeded steadily. Hammond[4] has constructed a table from information supplied by the secretaries of the cotton exchanges at New York, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans and Galveston, showing the sales of “spot” cotton at those ports for the twenty-two years between 1874-1875 and 1895-1896, and in all cases an absolute decline is evident. The receipts of cotton in the season 1904-1905 at the leading interior towns and ports of the United States are given below.

Receipts of Cotton at 28 Interior Towns.
(In Thousand Statistical Bales of 500 ℔ each.)

Brenham, Tex. 17 Memphis, Tenn. 984
Dallas, Tex. 96 Nashville, Tenn. 19
Shreveport, La. 256 Selma, Ala. 126
Little Rock, Ark. 219 Montgomery, Ala. 211
Helena, Ark. 91 Eufaula, Ala. 29
Vicksburg, Miss. 100 Columbus, Ga. 74
Columbus, Miss. 57 Macon, Ga. 87
Natchez, Miss. 76 Albany, Ga. 35
Atlanta, Ga. 134 Houston, Tex. 2,423
Rome, Ga. 72 Meridian, Miss. 133
Augusta, Ga. 446 Cincinnati, Ohio 167
Columbia, S.C. 68 Yazoo City, Miss. 65
Newberry, S.C. 17 ——
Charlotte, N.C. 21 Total 6712
Raleigh, N. C. 19 —-—-
St Louis, Mo. 672 Crop. 13,565
Receipts of Cotton at American Ports.
(In Thousand Statistical Bales of 500 ℔ each.)
Galveston, Tex. 2,879 Boston, Mass. 84
New Orleans, La. 2,690 Philadelphia, Pa. 14
Mobile, Ala. 330 Brunswick, Ga. 200
Savannah, Ga. 1,877 Pensacola, Fla. 187
Charleston, S.C. 225 Minor Ports 518
Wilmington, N.C. 375 ———
Norfolk, Va. 820 Total 10,295
Baltimore, Md. 62 ———
New York 34 Crop 13,565

Galveston and Savannah have risen considerably in relative importance of late years.

Before the Civil War each planter would have his own gin-house. Now, however, ginning is a distinct business, and one gin will serve on an average about thirty farmers. Moveable gins were tried for a time in some places; they were Ginning and packing. dragged by traction engines from farm to farm, like threshing machines in parts of England, but the plan proved uneconomical because, among other reasons, farmers were not prepared to meet the cost of providing facilities for storing their cotton. In addition to the small country ginneries, large modern ginneries have now been set up in all the leading Southern market towns. The cotton is pressed locally and afterwards “compressed” into a very small compass. The bales are usually square, but cylindrical bales are becoming more common, though their cost is greater. In the latter, the cotton is arranged in the form of a rolled sheet or “lap.” Owing to complaints of the careless packing of American cotton, attention has been devoted of late to the improvement of the square bale.

London used to be the chief cotton port of England, but Liverpool had assumed undisputed leadership before the 19th century began. Some arrivals have been diverted to Manchester since the opening of the Manchester ship English ports of entry. canal; shipments through the canal from the 1st of September to the 30th of August in each year for the decade 1894-1895 to 1904-1905 are appended—six to eight times as much is still unloaded at Liverpool.

A Manchester cotton-importing company was recently formed for increasing deliveries direct to Manchester, and establishing a “spot” market there, an end to which the Manchester Cotton Association had directed its efforts for some time past. The latter association was established at the end of 1894, with a membership of 265, in the interests of those spinners who desired importations direct to Manchester. The objects of the association are officially stated to be: (1) to frame suitable and authoritative forms of contract, and to make rules and regulations for the proper conduct of the trade; (2) to supervise and facilitate the delivery of the importations of cotton at the Manchester docks to the various consignees; (3) to provide and maintain trustworthy standards of classification; (4) to procure and disseminate useful information on all subjects pertaining to the trade; (5) to act in concert with chambers of commerce and other bodies throughout the world for mutual protection; (6) to establish a market for cotton at Manchester. Spinning members preponderate, but almost all the Manchester cotton merchants and cotton brokers have also joined the association. The importance of the original spinners’ representation on the association is shown by the fact that they worked over 14,000,000 spindles: in December 1905 the spindles represented by members had risen to nearly 20,000,000. Some 73,000 looms are also represented. As most of the Lancashire cotton mills lie far from Manchester, direct importations to that city do not usually dispense with a “handling,” and frequently save little or nothing in freight rates, though in some cases the economy derived from direct importation is considerable. One gain accruing to Lancashire from the Canal, however, is that its competition has brought down railway rates.