selling price averaging 6.52 cents. These fignres include all expenses of planting, cultivation, fertilizers, rents, ginning, marketing, etc., and while probably approximating the average cost of production under the present system of cotton culture in the South, can not be taken to show the minimum cost under improved methods.

Cotton Diseases and Insects.- Recent investigations have revealed the causes of a number of well-known diseases of the cotton plant. Some of these are due to disturbances in the nutrition and assimilation of the plant, others are caused by the attack of fungi, while still others are caused by the production of galls on the roots by minute worms called nematodes. Of the first class the mosaic disease or yellow leaf blight, the red leaf blight, and the shedding of bolls are the most serious. These can be remedied to a great degree by better attention to the nutrition of the plants and drainage of the soils. Experiments conducted for a number of years at the Alabama Experiment Station indicate that liberal applications of kainit as a fertilizer would greatly reduce the liability to loss from the mosaic disease. The diseases due to fungi are of a different nature. The fungi find their way into the tissues of the plant, where they live parasitically, robbing the plant of its much needed nutriment and often causing destructive changes resulting in the death of the plant. Among the more destructive diseases of this kind are: Wilt or Frenching, soreshin or damping off, anthracnose, leaf blight, and rootrot. The wilt disease is caused by the fungus Neocosmospora vasinfecta. This fungus lives in the soil from which it gains entrance to the cotton plant through the roots. Once in the plant the fungus develops rapidly and plugs the water-conducting vessels, cutting off the water supply of the plant and causes it to wilt suddenly. This is the most conspicuous symptom of the disease and the wilting is usually followed by the death of the plant. The fungus lives for quite a while in the soil and where abundant necessitates the abandonment of cotton growing for a time. Some varieties of cotton, especially the Egyptian ones, seem more resistant than others and where adapted should be planted to the exclusion of susceptible varieties. Cowpeas and watermelons are subject to attacks of the same or similar fungi and should not be planted in rotation upon known infected soils. Soreshin, damping off, is due to the fungus Pythium debaryanum, which causes the young plant to rot off at or near the surface of the ground. Anthracnose is due to Colletotrichum gossypii. It attacks the stems, leaves, and bolls. It begins as small red spots which spread and darken for a time, when the centres become grayish and a pinkish color appears on the spots. These areas are usually sharply defined and give to the bolls in particular an appearance sometimes called "bird eyes." The affected bolls either die outright or fail to open. The root rot is caused by the fungus Ozonium auricomum attacking the roots, causing their decay and the consequent destruction of the plant. The leaf blight due to Sphaerella gossypina, and the mildew caused by Ramularia areola, attack the leaves and when abundant cause the partial or total defoliation of the plants. A bacterial disease of the bolls causes the destruction of the

or

seed and lint within them. The nematode gall disease may readily be recognized by the presence of numerous galls upon the roots. These are caused by the widely distributed nematode, Heterodera radicicola, which lives in the soil and attacks the roots of a wide range of plants. Long periods of rotation and the cultivation of varieties not subject to attack are the only practical means of relief known.

Cotton is often seriously injured by insects of various kinds. Cutworms, plant lice, caterpillars, grasshoppers, stalk borers, etc., injure different parts of the plant, but the greatest damage done to the cotton crop by insects is caused by the attacks of the cotton worm or cotton caterpillar (Aletia argillacea), the cotton bollworm (Heliothis armiger), and the Mexican cottonboll weevil (Anthonomus grandis). See COTTON, INSECTS INJURIOUS TO; WEEVILS. Manufacturing. When cotton has arrived at the mill, the processes through which it must pass before being turned out as finished cloth are varied and more or less intricate. The most important step in the process of producing cloth from the raw materials is the spinning. This may be variously divided, each division embracing a group of separate manipulations. The fibre must first go through a preparatory process. The bales have their ties cut and the bagging removed when the contents of a number are thoroughly mixed to secure a more uniform product. The cotton is then run through an "opener" which cleanses the cotton from impurities, such as broken seeds, fragments of leaves and stalks, dirt, etc., and the individual fibres are thoroughly separated. It then goes to a machine that arranges the cotton into laps or rolls of an approximately uniform weight. From here it goes to the carding, combing, and drawing machines which straighten out the tangled mass, extract the very short fibres and secure the regular and uniform distribution of the fibres in parallel series. The "roving machine draws the "sliver," as it is called, to a more uniform size and gives it a slight twist, after which the yarn is still more attenuated and twisted in the process technically known as spinning. In some mills the process stops with the production of the yarn, while in others it goes to the loom and after various manipulations becomes the finished product. In all the processes the manipulations are rather complicated and a minute description of them should be sought under the technical topics of spinning and weaving, the process being quite similar for all fibres. Many different kinds of machines are employed, some of them of great complexity, yet so skilled do the operatives become that a single person can readily attend to the almost automatic workings of a number of the most intricate spinning mules. Just as the bale is generally considered the unit of the cotton crop, so the number of spindles and looms is taken to indicate the relative capacity of the mills manufacturing it. In respect to cotton manufactures the United Kingdom ranks first as an exporting country and British India as an importing country. Germany ranks second in exports, and is followed by France, Belgium, Switzerland, and British India, in the order named. In respect to the value of cotton goods imported China ranks next to British India and is followed by Germany and the United States. Prior to the Civil War and

for a number of years following it, but a very small proportion of the cotton crop was manufactured within the States where it was produced. During this time the development of the industry in the New England and other Northern States was constant, the rate of increase being steadily maintained. In 1860 there were about 300,000 spindles and 6,700 looms in operation in the Southern States as compared with 3,900,000 spindles and 93,300 looms in New England. In 1880 the same regions reported 542,000 spindles and 11,900 looms and 8,630,000 spindles and 184,700 looms respectively. About this time the question of transportation of the raw product to the northern mills and of the finished cloth to the southern markets became important considerations and the general industrial development of the South led to the rapid growth of the cotton manufacturing in the cotton-producing States. By 1895 the number of spindles in operation in the South was nearly 2,500,000, and for the next three or four years the increase reported was nearly 400,000 per annum. In 1899 there were more than half a million more set in operation, while the increase for 1909 was over ten million, making the total for the Southern States at the close of that year 10,801,494 spindles, as compared with 16,112,498 spindles then operated by the New England mills. These figures are given from the preliminary reports of the United States census for 1910. The increase in the number of mills and looms was about the same proportion, there being a total of 531 mills and 122,902 looms in the South at the same date. According to Shepperson the mills of the United States now consume about one third of the crop produced, those of the North taking in 1909-10, 2,016,386 bales and those in the South 2,292,333 bales. While the mills in the New England States and the Southern States consume nearly the same proportion of the crop, yet the value of the products varies widely. In 1900, the latest reports obtainable, the New England States produced from 1,829,678 bales materials valued at $191,690,913, while the Southern mills from 1,479,006 bales turned out products valued at only $95,002,059. This difference is due largely to the character of the products, the staple goods of the southern mills being those classed as brown sheetings, while the northern mills turn out a finer product at a correspondingly increased valuation. The class of goods turned out by the southern mills requires the "middling grades of cotton which produce a relatively heavy cloth. This difference in the product of the two regions follows the general trend of all enterprises, the coarser products being first attempted, the finer ones following after a time. While some effort has been made to in

crease the fineness of the southern product, the profit in the cheaper grades has thus far prevented any great development along that line,

There does not seem to have been much of a demand on the Sea Island cotton crop by the home mills, that cotton being exclusively used in the very finest grades of cotton weaves.

Of recent years there has been considerable interest in what are called "mercerized cottons." This process is an important adjunct to cotton manufacturing. The process consists of subjecting cotton or other vegetable fibres to the action of caustic soda dissolved in water, after which they are treated with pure water fol

lowed by dilute sulphuric acid and again washed. This treatment with chemicals causes both a physical and a chemical change in the fibre. The cotton after treatment instead of a flattened, twisted fibre, is swollen, thickened, becomes cylindrical and the cell wall is greatly thickened, with its cavity correspondingly reduced. This process, which was discovered by an Englishman, John Mercer, and patented in 1850, was designed by him to strengthen the goods and render them more uniformly subject to certain dyes. The process fell out of use to a great degree, but recently new attributes of the treated fibre were discovered. The treatment causes a decided shrinking of the goods, a fact now taken advantage of in making certain kinds of crepe cloth. It was also found that if the yarn or cloth be treated and kept under sufficient tension to prevent shrinking without being stretched, the fibre becomes translucent, and acquires a lustre similar to and but little inferior to that of silk. While apparently very simple the process is one requiring great care and skilful manipulation while the yarn is passed through the various chemical baths under heavy rollers. In practice it has been found that Sea Island and Egyptian cottons are best suited to mercerization. These fibres are already long and silky and are more uniformly acted upon. The extent of this industry is already quite important; the additional value acquired by cotton that has been so treated is given in the Twelfth Census Report at $697,490, more than 7,973,000 yards of cloth and 1,600,000 pounds of yarn having been mercerized.

Cotton By-products.- In the early days of cotton growing the lint was considered the only valuable product of the cotton plant. Modern ingenuity, however, has found a use for nearly every part of the plant, and if fully utilized the commercial value of the available by-products of the cotton crop reported upon in the Twelfth Census would have been more than $80,371,000, or about one fourth the total value of the crop. The cotton stalks and leaves have a considerable value as forage and if plowed under without having been burned the bare stalks aid materially in maintaining the fertility of the soil. The average yield of stalks and other refuse from an acre of cotton weigh about 850 pounds. If returned to the soil together with a portion of the seed or its equivalent in meal, the growing of cotton exhausts soil fertility very slowly, the drain on the soil of a cotton crop being less than that of any of the staple crops of the United States. The air-dried plants rank as forage with such coarse fodders as corn stover, corn shucks, rye, oat, and wheat straw, the stalks the strong, coarse bast fibre which etc. It has also been proposed to extract from they contain. If a suitable machine could be obtained for decorticating this fibre in an economical manner it could doubtless be used as bagging for the bales. A process of this kind has been patented, but it is said not to prove altogether satisfactory. A ton of stalks should yield about 300 pounds of fibre if properly extracted. In Egypt and other countries where fuel is scarce the stalks are collected and used for fuel. The bark of the root, recognized in the United States Pharmacopoea under the name Gossypii radicis cortex, is an active emmen

agogue, having an action similar to that of ergot.

In computing the money value of cotton by-products none of those just mentioned are included, but only the more important products of the seed are considered. Next to the lint the most valuable commercial product of the cotton plant is its seed. As picked from the plant cotton consists approximately of 3 lint and 23 seed by weight, that is a crop of 9,000,000 bales yields about 4,500,000 tons of seed. About 7 per cent of the seed is used for planting, the remainder for oil, stock feed, fertilizer, etc. Prior to the era of cotton-seed oil mills, part of the seed was fed either raw or cooked to stock, a larger portion was plowed under as fertilizer, and the balance burned, thrown into rivers or disposed of in the easiest manner possible. The true value of the seed was not appreciated until about 25 years ago, but since 1880 the crushing of cotton seed and the extraction of the oil has become a large independent business. A ton of Upland cotton seed as it comes to the mill yields on an average 20 to 40 pounds of linters, about 1,000 pounds of meats and 890 pounds of hulls. When crushed and pressed the meats yield about 300 pounds of oil and 700 pounds of oil cake. The first process involved in reducing the seed to its products is that of removing the "linters" as the dense short fuzz is called. The yield of linters varies with the thoroughness of the ginning, sometimes amounting to 70 or 80 pounds to a ton of seed. These are removed as well as possible, for their presence would absorb considerable oil during the subsequent manipulations. Their chief use is as cotton batting. The hulls are removed next and they were formerly burned, but are now utilized as a coarse feeding stuff for cattle, and as such have a value of $2.50 to $4.00 per ton. At this rate cotton seed hulls are cheap substitutes for hay. The ashes of burned hulls have lately come into considerable demand as a fertilizer for tobacco, their value dépending almost entirely on the relative abundance of potash and phosphoric acid which are present on an average of 23.40 and 9.08 per cent respectively. The cake residue from the presses, or the oil meal which is the crushed and ground cake, is extensively used both as stock food and as fertilizer.. It is very rich in protein, nitrogen free extract, and fat, and can only be used to advantage as a feeding stuff when mixed with some coarser fodder. Analyses of the hulls and meal show that they supplement each other quite well as cattle feed, the hulls furnishing the necessary carbohydrates and the meal the required protein for a well-balanced ration. It was not until about 1883 that the possibility of feeding them together was definitely known, and in 1894 it was estimated that fully 400,000 cattle were fattened and 150,000 milch cows fed on rations made up very largely of cotton-seed hulls and meal. For fattening cattle, sheep, and other ruminants four pounds of hulls to one pound of meal is a successful ration, while for feeding to milch cows seven or eight pounds of hulls to one pound of meal is recommended, although an exclusive diet of this kind is not now considered advisable. In feeding cotton-seed products they should be fresh, since they appear to undergo changes after a time that render them deleterious, especially to calves and pigs. Even when

fresh, for some unexplained reason, their use by young animals is attended with great danger. Cotton-seed meal is also extensively used as a fertilizer. It contains, in addition to potash and phosphoric acid, a large amount of nitrogen, and upon land that is not too dry may be compared with fish guano in its efficiency. Its value for this purpose, computed in the usual way that fertilizers are estimated, is from $20 to $25 per ton. It is an excellent fertilizer for sugar cane, corn, and cotton, and for tobacco it may be substituted for barn-yard manure.

Of the remaining constituents of the seed the oil is the most important. The report of the latest census shows there were 357 oil mills in operation which produced over 93,325,000 gallons of oil, valued at $21,390,000. The common method of oil extraction is to crush the decorticated meats and cook them in large heaters for 15 to 45 minutes, dependent upon the quantity, temperature of the vats, etc. This is one of the most important steps in extracting the oil, as too much or too little cooking diminishes the amount of oil and depreciates its quality. When in the judgment of the operator the meats are sufficiently cooked, they are folded in a camel's hair press cloth and gradually subjected to hydraulic or steam pressure that finally amounts to 3,500 pounds per square inch. Cold process oils are made, in which there is no preliminary cooking, and by some this quality of oil is preferred. When first expressed the oil is odorless, dark in color, and with a specific gravity of 0.92. This oil is then treated with alkaline solutions which precipitate the mucilaginous and albuminoid matter, together with the dark coloring matter, leaving a clear yellow oil which is drawn off, the residue being used for the manufacture of soap. With further refining this oil becomes what is technically known as "summer yellow oil.» Ordinary "summer yellow oils" become cloudy at temperature of 28° to 40° F., rendering them unfit for many purposes, and "winter oils" are prepared that remain clear at 32° F. This is done by cooling the summer oils until the stearin or palmatin becomes crystallized. The hardened substances are pressed out and the remaining oil is used for salad oils, etc. "Summer yellow oil," bleached by the addition of about three per cent of fuller's earth, is changed to summer white oil, which is the basis of compound lard, cottolene, etc. "Miner's oil," which is used with kerosene as an illuminant, is made from "summer yellow oil" by treating it with sulphuric acid. In these various processes there is left considerable residue, which consists mainly of various fatty acids, and is used for making soaps. Cotton-seed oil is a slowly drying oil, on which account it is not equal to linseed oil when used with paint, although it is used to some extent in that way. It is also used as a lubricant, is employed in pharmacy, and to some degree in other arts. The coloring matter in the freshly expressed oil has also been separated, purified, and used as a dyeing material. Two important dyes have been separated, one, which is an oxydizing agent, giving a fine purple or violet blue color; the other, a non-oxidizing material called gossypin, affords a golden yellow to silk and wool.

Distribution and Production.- Cotton may be cultivated in nearly all portions of the globe between lats. 35° N. and S. or in a broad zone running around the earth and embracing the

tropics and portions of the temperate zones. Its most profitable cultivation at present is between lat. 20° and 35° N., although it is grown in Turkestan as far north as 45°. During Colonial times cotton was profitably grown in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and some is now grown in Kansas and Utah; however, the present limits of economic production in the United States is south of lat. 37° N. or a line running through southern Virginia, southern Kentucky, Missouri, and the northern boundary of Oklahoma. It is also grown extensively in India and Egypt, these two countries and the United States supplying fully 95 per cent of the world's crop. The estimated world's crop for 1900-01 was 13,858,000 bales, of which the United States produced 10,218,000 bales, India, including other Asiatic production, 2,390,000 bales, Egypt 1,100,000 bales, and South America 150,000 bales. For the countries other than the United States and possibly Egypt, the estimates of production do not represent the total crop, but only that portion that is marketed, and the most of it exported. India is known to have a large domestic consumption of cotton, but the amount cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy. During the American Civil War, on account of the blockade of the southern ports, the price of cotton reached almost fabulous figures, and cotton culture was given quite a stimulus in Italy and other parts of southern Europe, as well as in Australia and elsewhere, but within less than 10 years the United States re-asserted her supremacy in cotton production and was again supplying the bulk of the requirements of the world's trade. The limiting conditions of profitable cotton growing seem to be temperature and distribution of rainfall or ability to irrigate. An average summer temperature of 73° to 75° F. and a winter temperature of 45° to 48° F. seem to furnish the proper temperature requirements, and the average distribution of rainfall of the Southern States, the moisture needed for the production of the best quality of fibre. Elevation and proximity to the sea are important factors to be considered for producing certain types of cotton, as may readily be seen in the wide variation in the quality of staple produced in contiguous regions.

The beginning of cotton culture in the United States is a matter of much speculation, but that it was carried on in a desultory way for a century or more, before becoming an important industry. seems quite probable. In some of the earlier accounts of Virginia, the writers claimed that cotton would grow in that colony as well as in any part of the world. Bancroft tells us that an experimental planting of cotton was made in Virginia in 1621, and the result was a subject of interest in America and in England. The industry spread rather slowly to the other colonies, but cotton growing had become important before the Revolutionary War in the region now known as the Cotton States. This was upland cotton. The history of the introduction and development of the culture of Sea Island cotton is better known. Sea Island cotton seed was brought from some of the West Indies, where it was indigenous, to Georgia in 1786, and it was at once found to be adapted to the coast region of that State. The following year, 1787, saw the introduction of this crop along the shores of South Carolina and Georgia, but its first recorded extensive production was in 1788, when

Thomas Proctor raised 5,000 pounds upon a plantation near Savannah, Georgia, and reported it to the Philadelphia Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures.

During the early days of upland cottongrowing, the lint was separated from the seed by hand, about four pounds being considered a day's task. This slow process precluded the rapid extension of cotton production. The roller gin in use for ginning the Sea Island cotton did not differ essentially from that known in India 2,000 years before, and it was not adapted to upland cotton. In 1794 Eli Whitney patented his famous saw gin and made possible the enormous crops of later years. In estimating the cotton crop it is usual to begin the cotton year with September I, the year being represented by figures that include portions of two calendar years, and the total yield is expressed in bales that may or may not be calculated to an uniform basis. Within 100 years, 1790 to 1890, the cotton production of the United States increased from about 5,000 bales to more than 10,000,000 bales of 400 pounds each. The cotton production of the United States by decades as given by Watkins in the United States Department of Agriculture, Division of Statistics, Miscellaneous Bulletin No. 9, was as follows:

The largest crop produced in the United States was that of 1904-5, which was 13,697,310 commercial bales, and the smallest during the past 75 years was that of 1864-5, which was estimated at about 250,000 bales. The Sea Island crop, which is almost exclusively produced in the coast region of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and on the adjacent islands, has averaged about 80,000 bales a year for the past 10 years, the crop of 1910 being estimated at 85,000 bales. The estimated total crop for 1910-11, according to the United States Bureau of Statistics, was 11,965,962 bales of a net weight of 490.7 pounds, produced on 30,000,000 acres, or an average of 190 pounds of lint cotton per acre. The United States Census Bureau has been recently charged with the collection of statistics regarding the annual cotton production, and the estimate of that bureau for the crop of 1909-10 as shown by returns received from about 35,000 ginneries, was 10,650,961 gross bales of 487 pounds each. The production of commercial bales by States was as follows: Alabama, 1,088,000; Arkansas, 728,000; Florida, 64,000; Georgia, 1,932,000; Indian Territory and Oklahoma, 2,037.700; Louisiana, 286,000; Mississippi, 1,137,000; Missouri, 87,000; North Carolina, 660,000; South Carolina, I,