The additional slaves, in such case, being more youthful, or more aged ones, or infirm females, may be fairly computed at an equal number with the field hands, but costing only about one half the price. The additional land should be for cultivation, about twenty acres for each field hand. The capital, in oxen, horses, sheep, tools for husbandry, &c., about $30 to each slave on the plantation. To these must be added the capital which may be deemed temporary, and not as a permanent investment, and hence is to be all yearly returned, such as expense for extra clothing not made on the plantation, for medicine, overseers, tools for labour, taxes, freight, &c., which may be forty-five dollars to each slave. Differing from these last data, in some respects, in substance, and wholly unlike in form, is another mode of computing all the capital invested except that in the mere cotton lands. Instead of estimating the price of slaves, &c. it may be considered that slave labour could be hired, with food, clothing, medicine, &c., at a cost for cach field hand from $100 to $120 per year. That from $30 to $40 each would defray the annual expense of overseers, tools, horses for each, and that the additional and equal number of slaves, not prime field hands, could be hired and supported for less than one half of annual cost of the others. On these data the cotton crop, as estimated for 1835, at four hundred and eighty millions of pounds, would grow on 1,600,000 acres at 300 lbs. per acre, or 1,920,000 at 250lbs. each. Considering that some lands wear out quick and are changed, probably the whole quantity cultivated for cotton in the United States, at this time, should be estimated at two millions or more of acres. From the above elements the whole capital invested in growing the cotton crop in the United States can be readily computed. On one hypothesis, converting the whole capital into that which is permanent, and partly invested in lands, slaves, and tools, as fixed capital, and partly invested in bank or other stocks, or in loans so as to yield an income, and not a capital sufficient to defray those kind of expenses which are usually deemed temporary, and are yearly remunerated, or require what is called a circulating or floating capital, and the whole will amount to more than $900,000,000. On another hypothesis, considering the capital, as it generally is, divided into fixed and circulating; the capital as fixed, which is invested in lands, slaves, stocks of horses, tools, &c., and only about $30,000,000 for other expenses, as circulating or temporary, and to be itself, and not its income or interest, used and repaid yearly, and the whole capital of both kinds will not quite equal $800,000,000. This last amount accords nearly with a still different mode of testing the quantity of capital, by supposing that the whole crop of 480,000,000 lbs., at ten cents per pound, being $48,000,000, would yield six per cent. on all the money invested in any way in raising the crop. If the capital used was all permanently invested, it would, on this hypothesis, amount to near eight hundred millions of dollars; but as from twenty-five to thirty millions of dollars is temporarily invested, and must itself be repaid yearly, the whole may, in the usual mode of treating of capital employed in such business, be considered rather under than over $800,000,000. That amount, however, has been assumed as about correct, in the table, and is near enough for the estimate and comparisons at different periods in this country, and at the same period between this and other countries. In others, as in India, Brazil, and Egypt, the cost of labour is less, and perhaps the amount of labour performed by each hand is believed to be less, independent of the failure there to use much the improved cotton gin. Here, at 250 lbs. per acre as an average crop, and eight acres an average cultivation by one hand, the product would be 2,000 lbs. per hand, or at ten cents per pound, would be the average of $200 per field hand. All the planter obtains over ten cents per pound would yield him a large rate of interest above six per cent. to pay for the greater risk and uncertainty of capital invested in this species of property. The whole crop of 1834 was probably worth $75,000,000 at the actual market prices, though at ten cents per pound only $48,000,000. It is difficult to institute any just comparison between the profits of capital invested here in the growing of cotton, and in the manufacture of it; as in the latter so much more in proportion is invested in temporary or circulating capital to pay for wages and stock, and the whole of which is to be annually repaid. Neither have I leisure for the details. Indeed it might have comported better with the technical language of political economy to have divided the whole expenditures in raising cotton into three heads, viz: labour, capital, and land; to yield in return, wages for the labour, profit or interest on the capital, and rent for the land. (See Senior's Outline of Political Economy, page 165, from the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.) It will be easy, for those who prefer it, to throw the calculation into that form ; but the results then, would not be such as accord best with the views proposed in this part of the table; which are, to present to the community here, in plain terms, and in a form as intelligible as possible to people at large, the amount of capital actually employed at different periods in growing the cotton crop in the United States; whether invested in the original purchase of lands, the clearing, or the culture of them; in the purchase of slaves, or in procuring an income for the payment, or in the actual payment of wages of free labour to raise the crop; for buying seed, tools, food, raiment, horses, &c., and for payment of taxes, overseers, or any other expense, incidental or direct, connected with the production of the crop. Two brief statements of a very general character are subjoined, in illustration of some of the above remarks. $40,000,000 1st. The capital invested in cotton lands under cultivation, at two million acres, and worth, cleared, on an average, $20 per acre, is The capital in field hands, and in other lands, stock, labour, &c., to feed and clothe them, at $100 per year, on 340,000 in number, would require the interest or income of a capital, at six per cent. of 554,000,000 The maintenance of 340,000 more assistants, &c., at $30 each per year, would require the income of a capital at six per cent. of 167,000,000 The capital to supply enough interest or income to pay for tools, horses for ploughing, taxes, medicines, overseers, &c., at $30, for the first 340,000, would be 167,000,000 Making in all a permanent capital, if so used, equal to $918,000,000 2d. The capital in cotton lands, as stated above $40,000,000 Capital in the purchase of 340,000 field hands, at $800 each, on an average, 272,000,000 136,000,000 Capital in the other 340,000 to aid, and to raise food, clothing, 20,400,000 272,000,000 30,600,000 $771,000,000 The increase of American cotton is such, as to create the utmost astonishment that our vast capacity to produce it had so long rested without notice. The export, by the last return, was about 24 millions. The late General Washington was a lover of agriculture, understood it well, and was not inattentive to fair profit in his patriotic pursuits and private business: yet he does not appear ever to have noticed our country's capacity to produce cotton. This is the more remarkable, because nearly all his landed property was in the cotton district of the United States. No circumstance can more strongly prove the universal inadvertency of America to her capacity to produce cotton. One of the beneficial effects of our present active cultivation of cotton is, that, while it yields the greatest agricultural profit in proportion to the capital in land and stock, it has a sure tendency to diminish the quantities of rice, tobacco, indigo, grain, and cattle raised in the cotton district of America, and keeps up the price of those articles in a manner highly favourable to those who raise them. The moderate quantity of rice produced in 1801 and 1802 is a positive evidence of this profitable truth. The North American rice is of the best class. The body of our rice planters raise but three quarter crops or half crops, from their attention to cotton. Having so much less to sell, the market is not glutted. The price is consequently not low. It is favourable. The raisers of Indian corn in the southern states have also turned to cotton. Hence Indian corn and pork are every where better supported in price, to the general benefit of our farmers. Much corn will go from counties out of the cotton district to counties in the cotton district for sale and consumption. So of fish, and all eatables and drinkables. From these circumstances it will appear, that we have an universal and deep interest to keep up the price of cotton. Home demand ought not to be neglected or overlooked. The cotton manufacture merits the earliest and best attention of the Union and of the states. Scotland cannot pursue that manufacture to as much advantage as the middle, northern and eastern states of America. The British duty of one penny sterling is nearly two cents per pound. The freight, insurance, storage, commissions, duty and other charges might be wholly or partly saved. We might use our own indigo, woad, madder, barks, and other dye stuffs, or those which we import and re-ship to Scotland, and other parts of Europe. The Scotish manufacturers are fed with our flour and that which they import, all the charges on which are saved so far as our own manufacturers consume our provisions. It appears to be expedient to give this great case of the cotton manufacture a complete examination and to make a luminous exhibition of it before our country. For which purpose it is respectfully suggested to the legislature of the United States, and those of the several states, to give the subject in charge (by an early reference) to the proper department of their respective executive governments, with instructions to enquire into, examine, consider and make report concerning the rise, progress, and present state of the cultivation of cotton, the course of the importation and exportation thereof since the 3d of March 1789, the course of the trade in cotton goods, since that day, the present state of the household and regular manufactory of cotton goods in the United States, and the measures which have been adopted by the Union and by the states to encourage the same, to the end of considering what further encouragement can and ought to be given by the governments to the cultivation, export, trade, and manufacture of cotton within the United States.-T. COXE. Circumstances connected with the cotton trade, chronologically arranged. B.C. The cotton manufactures of India were taken notice of by the Greeks when Alexander overran Greece. A.D. 1101. The measure of the ell fixed by Henry I. 1280. The manufacture of cotton introduced into China from India. 1500. The first attempt made to introduce cotton goods into England. 1560. Giuccardini records the Low Countries to be the depot of India goods and of cotton from the Levant. 1565. The first act of parliament relating to cotton goods. 1600. The first charter granted to the English East India company. 1631. Printed calicoes imported into England. 1640. Fustians made at Bolton. 1670. The Dutch loom first used in England. 1673. Blore in his History of Liverpool, speaks of great cotton manufac tories in the adjacent parts. 1676. Calico printing first introduced into London. 1700. The manufacturing of muslins first attempted in Paisley. 1721. The weaving of India calicoes prohibited. 1725. Linens, lawns, and cambrics, first manufactured at Glasgow. Mr. James Monteith was the first manufacturer who warped a muslin web in Scotland. 1730. Cotton spinning attempted unsuccessfully by Mr. Wyat at Litchfield, who spun the first thread of cotton yarn ever produced without the intervention of the fingers. 1735. The cotton plant first cultivated in Surinam. 1738. Mr. Lewis Paul took out a patent for an improved mode of carding. The fly-shuttle invented by Mr. John Kay of Bury. 1742. The first mill for spinning cotton erected at Birmingham. It was moved by asses; but the machinery was sold in 1743. 1750. The fly-shuttle in general use. 1756. Cotton velvets and quiltings first made. 1760. Mr. James Hargreaves applies the stock card to the carding of cotton with some improvements. 1762. Cylinder cards invented. First used by the father of the late Sir Robert Peel. 1763. Rouen was the principal market for the sale of cotton wool. 1767. The spinning jenny invented by Mr. James Hargreaves. 1769. Mr. Arkwright, afterwards Sir Richard Arkwright, obtained his first patent for spinning with rollers, and built his first mill at Nottingham. 1770. 5521 bags of cotton imported into Liverpool from the West Indies, 3 from New York, 4 from Virginia and Maryland, and 3 barrels from North Carolina. 1774. Power Looms invented by the Rev. Dr. Cartwright./750/385 1779. Cayenne, Surinam, Essequibo, Demerara, and St. Domingo cotton most in esteem. Mule jenny invented by Samuel Crompton. 1781. Brazil cotton first imported from Maranham, but very dirty. 1782. James Watt obtains his patent for the steam engine. 1783. Surat, and also Bourbon cotton, first imported or known about this time. 1784. Arkwright's first patent expired. Cotton manufactured in Great Britain this year was 11,280,238lbs., and valued at £3,950,000. Cotton imported in small quantities from the United States. 1785. Mr. M'Intosh and Mr. Dale commenced dyeing turkey red in Glasgow. 1786. Bourbon cotton sold from 7s. 6d. to 10s. per lb. 1793. Cotton, the growth of the United States, first imported in large quantities, by way of the West Indies. 1797. Scutching machine, said to be invented by Mr. Snodgrass, and Mr. Cooper, first used at Johnstone. About this time the saw-gin was invented. 1798. The Fame arrived with the first cargo of cotton from the East Indies. 1800 or 1801. The entire stock of American cotton in Liverpool one bag. 1803. Radcliff's dressing and warping machine invented. 1813. Trade to British India thrown open under certain restrictions. 1818. 105 millions of yards of cotton cloth manufacted in Glasgow, value £5,000,000. 1823. Cotton first imported from Egypt direct to Liverpool. 1825. Steam engines estimated at 893 horses' power, spinning cotton in and around Glasgow, in a space not more than two miles from the cross. 1830. The Danforth throstle frame introduced into England. 1832. Robert Montgomery of Johnstone (Scotland) obtained a patent for the three kingdoms for an improvement of the throstle frame, which it is considered will supersede all the machines hitherto used for spinning low numbers, also for making copes. The first entire machine was accidentally |