The Fabric of Civilization

A Short Survey

of the Cotton Industry in the

United States

Guaranty Trust Company of New York

140 Broadway

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

5

The Fabric of Civilization

COTTON
is the fabric of civilization.
It has built up peoples, and has
riven them apart. It has brought to the
world vast and permanent wealth. It has
enlisted the vision of statesmen, the genius
of inventors, the courage of pioneers, the
forcefulness of manufacturers, the initiative
of merchants 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 of its manufacture
passed from India to Spain, to Holland,
and finally to England, which now shares
it chiefly with the United States. The
interdependence of nations which it has
brought about has been the subject of
numerous books and articles.

Genius that Served
The World’s Need

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

The present purpose, however, is to explain,
as briefly as may be, the growth of
the cotton industry of the United States,
in its more important branches, and to endeavor,
on the basis of recognized authority,
to indicate its position in relation to
the cotton industries of the remainder of
the world.

America the Chief
Source of Raw Material

For the present, and for the future, as far
as that may be seen, the United States
will have to continue to supply the greater
part of the world’s raw cotton. Staples of
unusual length and strength have been
grown in some foreign regions, and short
and inferior fibers have come from still
others. But the cotton belt of the Southern
States, producing millions 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-growing areas, for the
1914-1915 season:

The American crop is thus approximately
fifty-six per cent. of the world’s
6
total. The other producing countries
have shown since the beginning of the
century an interesting, if not a remarkable
growth, that of China being the largest
in quantity, and that of Russia, the
largest in proportion. The American increase
has been larger, absolutely, than
that of any other region, and there is little
indication that it will not continue to hold
first position.

English Spinners
Dominate World Market

In the manufacture of cotton, Great
Britain’s supremacy, while not so great
proportionately as that of America in
growing it, is for the present not likely to
be challenged. The following table of the
number of spindles in the chief manufacturing
countries is based on English figures
compiled shortly before the outbreak of the
World War. The number of spindles is
the usual basis upon which the size of the
industry is judged. It is not a perfect
method, but it has fewer objections than
any other:

Such figures can be only approximate.
The war has brought growth in the
United States and in Japan, but has certainly
reduced the numbers of spindles in
Germany, Austria, and Russia. It is
doubtful, moreover, how well the French
industry has been able to maintain itself.
But the tabulation is accurate enough to
show the relative standing of the various
countries. There are, as has been indicated,
other standards than the number
of spindles. The United States, through
the fact that it specializes, generally
speaking, on the coarser fabrics, uses
about 5,000,000 bales of cotton annually,
as compared with Great Britain’s 4,000,000.
The British product, however, sells
for much more. Thus the value of the
spindle standard is affirmed. England,
then, produces well in excess of one-third
of the cotton cloth of the world; the
United States considerably more than
one-fifth of it, with the other countries
trailing far behind, but prospering nevertheless.

The Individuality
of the Cotton Fiber

The cotton fiber—a highly magnified view, showing the twist

It is a curious ruling of fate which makes
the spinning of cotton fiber possible.
There are many other short vegetable
fibers, but cotton is the only one which
can profitably be spun into thread. Hemp
and flax, its chief vegetable competitors,
are both long fibered. The individuality
of the cotton fiber lies in its shape.
Viewed through the microscope, the fiber
is seen to be, not a hollow cylinder, but
rather a flattened cylinder, shaped in cross-section
something like the figure eight.
But the chief and valuable characteristic
is that the flattened cylinder is not
straight, but twisted. It is this twist
which gives its peculiar and overwhelming
importance to cotton, for without this
apparently fortuitous characteristic, the
spinning of cotton, if possible at all, would
7
result in 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 for strength
and durability.

Though the cotton plant seems to be
native to South America, Southern Asia,
Africa, and the West Indies, its cultivation,
was largely confined at first to India,
and later to India and the British West
Indies. At the beginning of the eighteenth
century, the West Indies, because
of their especial
fitness for growing
the longer staples
were supplying
about seventy per
cent. of the food of
the Lancashire spindles.
The United
States having made
unsuccessful attempts
to produce
cotton in the early
days of the colonies,
first became an important
producing
country toward the
end of the eighteenth
century.
American Upland
cotton, by reason
of its comparatively
short staple, and
the unevenness of
the fibers, as well
as the difficulty of
detaching it from
the seed, was decidedly inferior to some
other accessible species. The Southern
planters who grew it, moreover, found it
next to impossible to gin it properly, the
primitive roller gin of the time being unsuited
to the task, and the work of pulling
off the fibers by hand being both
tedious and expensive. In 1792, the
amount exported from the United States
was equivalent to only 275 bales.

Eli Whitney, the schoolmaster inventor of the cotton gin

The next year, 1793, is the most important
in the history of cotton growing
in the United States. In the autumn of
1792, Eli Whitney, a young Massachusetts
man who had just been graduated
from Yale College, sailed from New York
to South Carolina where he intended to
teach school. On shipboard he met the
widow of Nathaniel Greene, the Revolutionary
general. Mrs. Greene invited
the youth to begin his residence in the
South on her plantation at Mulberry
Grove, Georgia.
Here one evening,
some officers, late of
General Greene’s
command, were discussing
the great
wealth which might
come to the South
were there a suitable
machine for
removing stubborn
Upland fiber from
its green seed. The
story goes that
while the discussion
was at its height,
Mrs. Greene said:

“Gentlemen, apply
to my young
friend, Mr. Whitney.
He can make
anything.”

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

The changes which followed immediately
8
upon the introduction of the cotton
gin were tremendous in scope and almost
innumerable. There was a time, before
cotton became a staple, when the South
led New England in manufacturing.
That time passed almost immediately.
Iron works and coal mines were abandoned,
and men turned their energies from the
culture of corn, rice, and indigo largely to
the raising of the cotton.

Expansion in
Production

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

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

Some little spinning had been done in
the seventeenth century, but in 1787-88 the
first permanent factory, built of brick, and
located in Beverly, Massachusetts, on the
Bass river, was put into operation by a
group headed by John Cabot and Joshua
Fisher. This factory failed to justify itself
economically, chiefly because of the
crudeness of its machinery. But Samuel
Slater, newly come from England with
models of the Arkwright machinery in
his brain, set up a factory in Pawtucket
in 1790. From that time forth the growth
was steady and sure, if not always extremely
rapid.

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

9

The North, having this growing interest
in an industry struggling against the 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 for a low tariff, and the
right to deal in human chattels.

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

Early Exports
to England Heavy

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

In 1910 American cotton made up almost
exactly three-quarters of the whole
amount imported into Great Britain.
The other countries of Europe have developed
a spinning industry by no means
inconsiderable. American cotton is sent
to almost all those European countries
which spin and weave.

Such a movement had of course a profound
effect upon the currents of world
trade. The cotton crop is the second in
value of all the crops produced in the
United States, and such a large part of it
is exported that the credit it gives to its
sellers enables them to buy in return
some of the most valuable of the products
manufactured in Europe.

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

WE
have seen (page 5) that the
world’s cotton crop is produced
chiefly by the United States, with 56%;
India, with 17%; China, with
13-¹/₂%;
Egypt and 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 of
Growing in India

India is the first country wherein, so
far as we have record, the growing of
cotton reached the stage of an industry.
There conditions are almost ideal, apparently,
for the production of a great
crop; yet, for many years the crop was a
small one, and was utilized locally in the
domestic manufacture of the light clothing
worn by the people. Nothing remotely
resembling the present modern factory
system developed during all the thousands
of years that the Indians had the field
practically to themselves. The plant
grown in India for a long time produced
a short, uncertain staple, difficult to gin
and still more difficult to spin. The greater
part of the cotton growing districts are
still given over to the short staple varieties
(about
³/₄
inch) but in recent years certain
varieties of Egyptian and American cotton
have been produced with some success.
About 20,000,000 acres are given
over to the culture of the plant, but the
methods used are to a great extent primitive
in the extreme. Most of the crop,
being unsuited to the needs of the British
spinners, is either manufactured in Indian
mills, of which the number is constantly
growing, or exported to Japan. Before
the war, Germany was a large consumer
of Indian cotton.

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

The Growing Importance
Of Egyptian Staples

The Egyptian crop is one of the most
interesting, both in the methods of culture,
and in the product. From the point
of view of statistics—remembering the uncertainty
of the size of the Chinese crop—Egypt
is the third cotton growing country
of the world. This is the more interesting
because it was not until about 1820 that
Egypt was considered as a source of supply.
The present area, under extremely
intensive cultivation, is about 1,800,000
acres, and nine-tenths of this is in the
Nile delta.

Climatic conditions are radically different
from those of the United States. Little
rain falls during the growing season, but
an elaborate system of irrigation provides
a sufficient and probably more satisfactory
water supply, insomuch as the quantity
of water can be regulated, and there
is little danger of either too much or too
little moisture. The regions where the soil
is not composed exclusively of the black
delta mud, but is a mixture of sand and
mud, produce the best crops. The land,
11
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
the seedlings appear there is frequent hoeing
and watering. The total water is
equivalent to a rainfall of about 35 inches.
There is little cultivation in the American
fashion, hand labor being employed almost
exclusively. The result of all this
intensive effort is an abundant crop of
long-stapled cotton with an extremely
strong fiber, bringing in the open market
a price second only to that of the American
Sea Island variety. Much of the
Egyptian cotton is used in the manufacture
of hosiery and other knit goods,
sateens, sewing thread, etc., but recently
it has also been found to be exceedingly
well fitted for the manufacture of the
fabric used in pneumatic tires, and for
the duck or filter cloth used in such industries
as the refining of sugar.

Pickers in Delta Field

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

The American Crop
As the World’s Basis

But the bulk of the world’s supply is
the cotton grown in the United States.
The price for American Upland Cotton
12
governs the price of the other varieties.
The acreage devoted to the cultivation
of the cotton crop in the United States
is approximately 34,000,000. The increase
since 1839, when census figures
covering this point were first obtained,
has been about seventeen fold. The 1916
acreage, of the various States, together
with figures giving the value of the crop
and the comparative rank, is here given:

There are generally speaking, two
kinds of cotton produced in the United
States—Upland cotton, and Sea Island
cotton. The former makes up the great
bulk of the crop, the relative percentages
in 1917 being 99.2 and .8.

The Constant Search
For Long Staples

A few years ago the terms short-staple
and Upland were practically interchangeable,
but the great demand for long staple,
chiefly from the manufacturers of thread
and of pneumatic tire fabrics has led to
a successful attempt to grow the longer
fibers in the Upland districts, so that
now more than a million bales annually
are being produced in the Upland 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
of 2,250,000 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 United States
grows upon the small islands off the coast
of South Carolina. The long-staple Upland
is grown chiefly in the Mississippi
delta, where the product is called “Peeler,”
“benders,” etc., though the percentage
of long-staple produced elsewhere is
steadily increasing. The success of certain
Arizona growers in producing long-staple
from Egyptian seed is being watched
with great interest. More than 3,000
bales came from this source in 1916, the
fiber averaging
1-¹/₂
inches in length.
There has recently been developed there,
13
the new and important Pima variety,
which is 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 the comparative
length of staple of the more important
varieties of cotton. The order in
which they are given represents, roughly,
their relative commercial value:

The table of the number of spindles in
each country in the world, given on page
6, gives some idea of the relative position
of the United States in the field of cotton
manufacturing. We have seen how the
English industry, having the prior start,
grew to imposing proportions and helped
to bring about a change almost as great
in its effects as the French Revolution,
which was occurring at almost the same
time. British supremacy in cotton manufacturing
has never been truly challenged,
but there has been an appreciable
growth in several other countries, and in
Germany and Japan, at least, the recent
development has been little short of phenomenal.
New figures will probably show
that in the future Japan will be the chief
competitor of England and the United
States for a share of the cotton trade of
the world.

Fall River, Massachusetts

The Home Market
Created An Industry

The chief factor in the growth of the
American industry was probably not the
nearness of the source of supply, cheap
fuel or labor, nor any of these factors
which operated in the case of England,
such as climate, geographical position, and
shipping control, but more than anything
14
else the presence of a market close at hand
which grew so rapidly, more rapidly indeed
than the industry could grow to
meet it. Aided to some extent by an import
tariff, the manufacturers have weathered
some short periods of depression, but
in the main the industry has grown in
direct ratio to the growth of the country.

A typical Southern mill

New England As Home
Of American Spinning

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

Bristol County, Mass., in which these
two centers, and Taunton, are located,
Providence, R. I., and Middlesex County,
Mass., together contained 10,086,686 spindles
in 1917, or 29.5% of the country’s
total of 34,221,252.

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

In the Middle Atlantic States, the
number of plants and the spindlage have
remained about stationary over a long
period of years, and are even showing a
tendency to decrease. Small weaving establishments
which buy their yarn are particularly
numerous around Philadelphia,
and there are large cotton duck mills in
and near Baltimore.

Mills in the Midst of
Cotton Plantations

It has been in the South, however, that
the growth of the cotton manufacturing
industry in the last few decades has been
most phenomenal. In 1860 there were
324,052 spindles in the cotton growing
States compared with 8,632,087 in New
England. In 1917, the figures were: Northern
15
States (including Connecticut, Illinois,
Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont),
19,835,662 spindles devoted to the
spinning of cotton exclusively; 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 except when
the confines of the city and of the county
happen to coincide. But the appended
table is presented as showing the spindlage
of counties having more than 100,000 spindles
devoted to the spinning of cotton.

About 1880, the Southerner saw the
opportunity that awaited him when he
should manufacture his own cotton. At
that time he was consuming only 188,748
bales, while New England took 1,129,498.
In ten years, he was utilizing more than
half a million bales, while New England
had just passed the million and a half
figure. In 1905, the South consumed
2,140,151 bales, while New England had
climbed to only 1,753,282. The figures are
Scherer’s, who points out that the race
was won in twenty-five years. However,
as competition with the South increased,
16
New England, following the earlier lead of
Old England, has tended always to produce
a finer and finer quality of cloth,
leaving the coarser grades of sheeting,
drills and ducks to the Southern mills.
Thus, while the South is consuming an
ever larger proportion of the cotton crop,
she is still far from receiving for her product
the money that comes to the New
Englander, who with a higher grade of
labor and greater variation of output is
constantly catering, with dress fabrics and
fine stuffs of various kinds, to a discriminating
well-to-do patronage.

The wealth of the world—at least up
to the time of the Great War—was constantly
increasing and while there is little
likelihood that the demand for the coarser
grades of goods will fall off, the need for
finer stuffs, 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 the location
of the growing fields and the manufacturing
centers. Thus we find that the
great raw cotton markets of the United
States are in New York and New Orleans.
In Europe they are at Liverpool, Bremen
and Havre. Because of conditions imposed
by the German government, the
Bremen market is largely dependent upon
New York and Liverpool. The other
great world market is that of Alexandria,
which, although it handles but a comparatively
small part of the world’s crop,
is important on account of the quality
of the staple which makes up the Egyptian
bale.

The two chief American markets, New
York and New Orleans, are sharply differentiated.
The New Orleans market
is a true trader’s market. The great bulk
of the sales made on the New Orleans
floor are bona-fide sales, in which cotton
actually changes hands. The New York
market on the other hand is a merchants’
and manufacturers’ market, in which
business transactions are protected against
loss by the purchase or sale of
“futures”, though, of course, there is
always a large amount of speculating. Delivery
is rarely demanded. The function
of the exchange, therefore, is largely that
of insurance. The intricacies of this market
will be discussed later.

BECAUSE
of the ramifications of the
cotton industry, the cotton itself, on
its devious way from planter to consumer,
is successively the concern of a series of
individuals and corporations. The immense
value of the product, the expense of
growing, handling, manufacturing, and
selling it all mean that great quantities of
capital are utilized in bringing it at last to
its final consumer. At any stage of the
process, cotton represents no inconsiderable
part of the nation’s wealth, and to
expedite its journey, merchandising and
financial methods of a highly specialized
technique have been developed. There
are two very clearly marked stages in this
process. The first has to do with the raw
cotton, as it goes from planter to mill.
The second has to do with the journey
from mill to consumer. The first is usually
called the Raw Cotton Market, and
the second the Cloth Market.

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

The Local Grower
And the Charge Account

They may borrow from the country
merchant in the town near which their
plantations are located. Credit here is
usually furnished through the “charge account”
system, whereby the merchant
supplies the planter’s wants for the growing
season, even to the extent of giving
credit to his farm hands. Tenant farmers
live almost entirely on credit furnished
by the store-keepers of the vicinity. When
the picking season begins, in July, August,
or September, according to the region
concerned, the merchant, in lieu of
money, may take the cotton as it comes
from the gins, crediting the grower thereof
at the market price. The cotton thus accumulated
is sold to local buyers, or, occasionally,
to shippers or exporters. In
the case of the larger plantations, or
groups of plantations operated by syndicates
or corporations, the cotton is frequently
shipped direct to the mill or, more
often, to a warehouse. The larger producers,
instead of getting their credit from
the local stores, as their tenant farmers
do, are financed either by their banks, or
by their buyers, who in turn are financed
by their bankers.

The Street Buyers
Of Texas Towns

In some districts, particularly in Texas,
there is the small or local buyer, usually
called a “street buyer,” who operates in
the smaller towns, buying his cotton at
the gins in lots of from one to ten bales,
either from the small planters, or from
the country merchants. This buying
gives a certain concentration to the crop,
and enables the larger buyers to deal in
lots of comparatively uniform quality
from certain regions, the general type of
whose product is known.

18

Street buyer in a Southern town

Cotton bought from the planters or
from the country merchants is almost invariably
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 the original buyer is a
mere local operator. One of the most important
operations, commercially as well
as industrially, is the grading of cotton,
which takes place as a rule at the compress
point under the supervision of the
buyer, who employs experts for this purpose.
Cotton mills as a rule operate on
certain specified grades of cotton, and any
deviation from this grade means either a
readjustment of machinery or disgruntled
and dissatisfied employes, or, perhaps, an
inability to fill an order for cloth of certain
types. The manufacturer will usually
refuse to accept any grades save those he
has specifically commissioned the buyer
to obtain for him. The actual grades, and
the terms describing them have been established
by the United States Government,
and are rigidly adhered 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 the
price.

Standardization of
American Cotton Grades

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

For yellow tinged stock the grades are:

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

With cotton selling around thirty cents
a pound, the difference between the cost
per pound of middling fair, the highest
market grade of white cotton, and good
ordinary, the lowest market grade, may
19
amount to twelve or thirteen cents. The
value of the shipment, and its use as a
basis for credit, 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 financial standing, and as we
have seen, they are bankers or factors
themselves, financing growers or small
buyers during the growing of the crop, and
the first concentration of the cotton. But
when the large movement of cotton is on,
it is frequently necessary that they, like
the local banks, must be financed in order
that they may execute their orders, or,
as is frequently the case, accept cotton
sent to them on consignment. Cotton
sent on consignment must be stored until
a market is found for it, and in order that
proper storage facilities may be supplied,
the provision of suitable warehouse facilities
is an important matter.

Warehousing as
Industry’s Great Need

Until recently, warehousing in its relations
to the textile trade, had not been developed
to the extent which might have
been expected in those methods which
would make it of the greatest use and advantage
to textile interests. By means of
the facilities which could properly be afforded
by warehouses, manufacturers, or
merchants should be able, at times of
favorable markets, to lay in large stocks
of materials, and to finance them safely
and easily.

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

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

Weighing cotton on the compress platform

Thus it is seen that the cotton merchant
has an important economic function to
perform. His is the duty of gathering up
the great aggregate of cotton, from all
parts of the cotton belt, and distributing
it in exactly the quantity and grade
needed to the cotton manufacturers of
the world. In the performance of this
function, and in order that the supply of
cotton may be fed out exactly as it is
needed by the manufacturers, the cotton
merchants have found it convenient, and
even necessary to establish great common
markets where they may meet and enter
into the transactions with each other and
the whole world which are necessary to
bring the cotton into the channels of commerce
and keep it moving to its multitudinous
destinations. These markets are
in addition to the numerous local markets
where the preliminary concentration takes
place, and to some extent they are subsidiary
to the latter, where the cotton of the
actual quantity and quality they are seeking
is to be had in the first instance. Yet
it is the great markets which establish the
20
prices, for it is they which are in close and
immediate touch with all the other markets
of the world, and it is on their floors
that the merchants and brokers meet who
deal in great quantities. It is their connection
with the numerous sources of information
which gives these great markets
their importance, for it is they which register
immediately and most accurately the
resultant of the sum total of all the
21
economic forces which determine the
price.

The New York Cotton Exchange

The great cotton markets of the world
are those of New York and New Orleans,
in the United States; Liverpool, in England;
Bremen, in Germany; Havre, in
France; Alexandria, in Egypt; and Bombay,
in India. There are differences between
these markets which give a greater
importance to some of them. Bremen,
which serves a large territory, operates
under governmental restrictions which
make it necessary for Bremen merchants
to deal in other markets as well. Havre
serves chiefly the needs of France, which
is not one of the large cotton consuming
countries. Alexandria deals only in Egyptian
cottons, and Bombay, whose dealings
are confined mostly to the native staples,
has neither the responsiveness nor the
completeness of the remaining markets.
Thus, by elimination, the three great markets
of the world, wherein cotton of all
kinds is dealt in, and all forms of transactions
in it are common are those of New
York, New Orleans, and Liverpool. To
these, the cotton world looks for guidance
from day to day. The prices established
on their several floors are the prices of the
world.

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 to stabilize conditions
after the great speculative period
which resulted from the American Civil
War. The New York and New Orleans
Exchanges were both organized the following
year. The uniformity of rules and
practices in the trade which resulted from
the establishment of the exchanges have
been of inestimable benefit to the industry
and to the world, and this despite occasional
abuses, which have usually been
corrected as methods for correction have
been evolved.

Spot Markets and Those
Which Deal in “Futures”

The New Orleans Cotton Market, and
those of lesser cities, are largely spot markets,
that is, the dealings which takes
place in the Exchanges at those points involve
the actual transferring of cotton
which is on hand, or, at least, contracted
for. The New York market deals preponderantly
22
in what are known as contracts
for future delivery, or, in the language
of the Exchange, “futures.” The
Liverpool Cotton Market is both a great
“spot” cotton market, and a great “futures”
market. The striking thing about
these “futures” contracts is that but few
of them are fulfilled by actual delivery.

The question then arises, what function
is fulfilled by the New York Exchange
that it should have such an important
place in the cotton market? To the uninitiated
the speculative features of the
market have often served to condemn it,
and at times of speculative fever, or of
manipulation such as has occurred on one
or two occasions, there has been public
agitation calling for legislation against
dealing in futures. Yet the New York
Exchange performs a very definite and
valuable service, and its trading methods
have served to stabilize the whole industry,
and to remove from it much of that
very speculation which is frequently
charged against the Exchange itself.

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

Why the Merchant
Must Hedge His Sales

For the cotton merchant, the situation
as it develops is approximately this: buying,
as he must, all grades and quantities
of cotton, he may have an immediate market
with the spinners whom he serves for
only certain of these grades, and thus may
have left on his hands a large supply of
cotton of other grades which came to him
in his purchases which he has no call for
at the time. These “overs” are subject to
the risk of a decline in value unless the
merchant can find some way to protect
himself. Nor is this risk the only one run
by the cotton merchant. The spinners
frequently contract for months ahead for
the output of their mills, and it is part of
the merchant’s task to see that the cotton
is available at a contract price when the
spinners are in need of it. Such contracts
for future deliveries are not only common
but customary. If it were impossible for
the spinner to make such contracts, it
would, of course, be impossible for the
weaver to make future contracts for the
delivery of cloth. Such a condition unsettling
the distributing markets, would
be intolerable. Hence, the necessity of
future contracts between merchants and
spinners. The situation would otherwise
be a very difficult one for the merchant
whose supply of cotton, and the price he
must pay for it, are subject to the vagaries
of nature, which may grant a bountiful
crop one year, and a short and inferior
one the next, with consequent fluctuations
in price sufficient not alone to wipe out
his profit but his capital as well.

The Hedge As a
Credit Transaction

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

“It may almost be said,” observes
Arthur R. Marsh, former President of the
New York Cotton Exchange, “that as the
main business of banks today is not dealing
in money, but in credits, so the main
business of the cotton exchanges is now in
credit transactions in cotton, toward
which the actual cotton ’on the spot’
stands in much the same relation as the
money in the banks to the sum total of
their transactions in credit. It serves as
a reserve at once for the satisfaction of
unliquidated credit balances and for the
maintenance of sound credit values in all
the credit operations.”

Elsewhere, Mr. Marsh describes the
hedging process in these words: “A hedge
23
is the purchase or sale of contracts for one
hundred or more bales of cotton for future
delivery, made not for the purpose of receiving
or delivering the actual cotton,
but as an insurance against fluctuations in
the market that might unfavorably affect
other ventures in which the buyer or seller
of the hedge is actually engaged.”

The floor of the New York Cotton Exchange

How Merchants Secure
Protection 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 for deliveries to be
made in the month specified in the contract,
he would buy futures for a corresponding
amount of cotton on the New
York Cotton Exchange.

If the price of cotton should have advanced
when the time for the delivery of
the actual cotton comes, he will be able to
sell his futures contract at a higher price,
thus offsetting the loss sustained upon the
deal 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 in price.

If, on the other hand, cotton should fall
before the merchant bought to fulfill his
actual contract, he would make a profit
upon his sales to the spinner. He would,
however, suffer a loss upon his futures
contract, for the seller would be able to
purchase the cotton to fulfill the contract
at a lower point than the contract called
for, and would consequently be able to
deliver to the merchant who made the
hedge, cotton which the latter would be
forced to accept at a price higher than
the then prevailing one, and thus again
24
the profit and loss would balance each
other. The usual custom is, not for the
merchant to accept delivery, but to pay
over to the seller of the futures contract
the difference between the contract price
and that prevailing. This would be just
the difference between his own purchasing
and selling price in his actual dealing
with the spinner, and so would eliminate
the profit, due to change in price, made in
that transaction. Thus, by the hedging
process, the merchant loses a possible
profit on a falling market, but at the
same time fails to suffer a loss when the
market is against him.

Hedging as Practiced
By Cotton Manufacturers

The manufacturer’s hedging is necessarily
somewhat different in practice,
though the same in principle. If he accepts
orders for cloth requiring more cotton
than is being held in his warehouse, he
may buy futures contracts to the amount
of the additional cotton he will need.
Then in the event that his actual purchase
of cotton may be at a figure which
would tend to reduce or eliminate his
profits on the sale of the cloth, already
fixed by contract, he may sell his futures
contract at a corresponding profit, thereby
preventing loss. Should the price of
cotton fall 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 same extent. Thus he
sacrifices the chance of a greater possible
profit in order to be insured against loss.

Compress bales bound for New Orleans

It is probably more common for the
cotton merchant to hedge than for the
manufacturer to adopt that proceeding.
The manufacturer, as a rule, has been accustomed
to buy his cotton during the
buying season, that is, in October, November,
December, and January, and he
makes his arrangements with his selling
agents on the basis of the price paid,
trusting to his own judgment, and the
25
comparatively small fluctuations in the
price of cloth in normal times, to protect
him against loss. It is usually believed
that the Southern mills, being newer, and
frequently of a different financial standing,
have found it more desirable to have
recourse to this form of insurance than
their older competitors in the North.
Then, too, the rapid development of the
cotton warehousing system has made it
less necessary for the manufacturers to tie
their money up in great quantities of cotton,
as they can buy when the market
appears favorable.

Protection for Mills
Running for Stock

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

If, however, the manufacturer sells
“futures” for the succeeding months
to the extent of the cotton which he would
require each month to manufacture the
goods, he can run his machinery as usual
and have a perfectly free mind, as he has
safeguarded himself against any loss due
to a falling value of the raw material.
Suppose, for instance, the cotton market
fell off, say one cent a pound each month,
with a corresponding fall in the value of
the woven goods. In such an event, the
manufacturer could, as each month arrived,
buy a contract for an amount corresponding
to what he had sold, and at a
proportionately less price, thus making a
profit on the “futures” which he had sold
to an extent which would correspond, approximately,
to the smaller value which
his manufactured goods would then have
in the market. Thus the profit on the one
side would take care of the loss on the
other. If the market rose instead of falling,
he would make a loss in replacing his
futures contract, but his goods would then
command a higher value, and again no
loss would be experienced.

This method of hedging is the regular
and standard practice of the English cotton
mills, and, of course, of many of our
domestic mills, but there are some manufacturers
who, through their unfamiliarity
with the operations of the futures market,
are quite unaware of the protection
which they thus have at hand.

The Responsiveness of
the Great Exchanges

The great exchanges, and the New York
Exchange in particular, are thus used by
cotton merchants and manufacturers in
every part of the world to protect themselves
in their buying and selling operations.
The value of middling cotton in
New York is kept upon par with the value
of the same cotton 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 in New York by
the difference between the amount it costs
to deliver cotton in Liverpool and to deliver
it in New York. Thus the merchant
and manufacturer is able to buy and sell
hedge contracts on the New York Exchange,
knowing that operations at the
New York price in New York are on a
parity with operations at the Liverpool
price in Liverpool, or at the Havre price
in Havre. Thus the hedge contract which
a Southern merchant sells in Atlanta,
through his broker on the New York
Exchange, may be bought by a spinner in
26
Tokyo or Manchester, anxious to insure
his supply of cotton at a price which
would make his contracts profitable.

In normal times the selling of merchants
and the buying of manufacturing
engaged in actual and bona fide hedging
transaction has been estimated by competent
authorities to make up fully seventy-five
per cent. of the trading done
on the New York Exchange. The remaining
twenty-five per cent. may thus
be attributed to speculative operations,
that is operations entered into by outsiders
through brokers, on the chance of a
rise 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 of crop reports or weather
conditions, or news likely to affect the
market favorably or unfavorably, and
buy or sell as their judgment dictates.
Their operations serve to discount such
changes to some extent, or at least to
make the breaks and rises more gradual
than they would otherwise be.

In abnormal times, that is times of great
scarcity and great demand, or bumper
crops and small demand, the speculative
element plays a larger part, for it is in
such times that the greatest fluctuations
in price take place. Merchants or manufacturers
holding hedging contracts are
under a greater incentive to buy or sell,
as they see their opportunities for profit
growing greater or less, as the case may
be, and in consequence more contracts are
made, and they pass from hand to hand
with greater rapidity, the gain or loss thus
being distributed among a greater number
of persons than would otherwise be the
case. It is the operations of speculators,
and the manipulation that once or twice
during its history has been possible by
unscrupulous traders which has brought
about at such times public agitation for
the abolition of the Exchange. Recent
changes in the form of the cotton contract
have made it almost impossible for such
operations, if repeated, to be successful,
and thus there is little likelihood that the
very important economic function of the
Exchange will be interfered with by
legislation.

THE
output of the manufacturer finds
its way to the ultimate consumer
through a variety of channels. What these
are will depend upon the manner in which
the various mills are organized, and their
respective policies as to the marketing of
their products. Some mills, usually very
large organizations, will have plants completely
equipped, in every department,
spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing, finishing,
etc., and will process all of their
goods themselves in every detail, offering
them on the market in their finished form.
Some of these may make a wide variety of
fabrics suitable for one class of trade, or
for many classes of trade, while others will
specialize on a few articles. A good many
concerns that are not of the largest size,
but which confine their production to a
few articles, may also put the goods
through every operation themselves.

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

Many Large Mills
Do No Finishing

Numerous mills, both large and small,
manufacturing, principally, goods of a
staple grade, which may either be of fine
or coarse character, sell their entire product
in the gray, or unfinished state, because
they do not wish to burden themselves
with the task of putting the goods
through the various finishing treatments
necessary to fit them for the market. This
method of disposing of the product appeals
to many for it reduces the manufacturing
operations to the spinning of
the yarn, and to the weaving of the cloth.
The owners or managers of the mills may
have had no experience outside of these
branches, and if they themselves were to
attempt to finish, or “convert,” the goods
they would be entering strange fields.

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

Dealing Direct With
Dry Goods Jobbers

A substantial portion of the output of
the mills (but nothing like what it was
years ago, and it grows relatively smaller
every year), is disposed of directly to dry
goods jobbing houses, and by them to
retail dealers, who sell it by the yard to
the consumer. This practice was formerly
more widespread, but has diminished
greatly in recent years. A further enormous
yardage passes eventually through
the cutting-up houses, which manufacture
garments of every kind, from overalls to
pajamas, or from raincoats to shirts, and
dispose of their products to distributors,
who eventually sell them to the public.
Then there are retailers whose requirements
for goods of particular kinds are so
considerable that their orders are of sufficient
magnitude to warrant the mills in
dealing with them direct.

Again, there are the great mail-order
houses, with a gigantic annual turnover,
28
whose catalogues go to every part of the
land, and which handle great quantities of
piece goods, as well as made-up garments,
and whose custom is eagerly sought for.

Thousands of looms in a single room

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

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

Merchandising by
Dry Goods Jobber

One of the oldest established agencies
for handling mill products is the dry
goods jobber, and it is to be remarked
that many large retail houses do also a
substantial jobbing business, though generally
less so in cottons than in other
classes of fabrics. The jobber will buy
finished products from those mills which
sell goods in that state, and will also buy
large amounts of gray goods. These he
will sell principally to retail distributors,
but his transactions, in addition, will extend
into a multitude of channels, and,
he will deal with small garment manufacturers
and makers of all kinds of wares,
and will also sell considerable quantities
to the larger cutters when they are unable,
for one reason or another, to buy
direct from the mills or from the converters.
There are also numerous small
jobbing concerns which buy substantial
quantities from the larger jobbers as
occasion may require.

One of the greatest avenues of outlet
is through a class of dealers known as
converters, and there are converters
operating in every kind of fabric from
cotton to silk. In the last forty or fifty
years, this business has developed into
immense proportions, and the converter
performs a real and important service in
the trade. He is intimately acquainted
with the needs of his customers, and
possesses a fair knowledge of the kinds
of goods put out by the various mills
and the different constructions in which
they are sold, and is well acquainted
with all of the market dyeing, finishing,
bleaching, and printing concerns, having
29
also a fair understanding of the various
treatments accorded to the goods. He
buys his goods in the gray from the mills,
and sends them to the finishers, printers,
etc., to be treated, according to his
instructions. By a careful studying of
the fabric constructions, and of the subsequent
treatments, he is able to create
fabrics of a suitable and marketable
character, which are in some respects
different from those offered by any of his
competitors, and which are brought out
with an exact knowledge of the requirements
of the trade to which he is catering.
He is able to make a profit, and generally
a very substantial one, by handling the
goods in this way.

Considerable capital is required by the
converter, as goods bought in the gray
have to be paid for on practically a cash
basis, and he may have to carry them for
a time before they are finally marketed.
The converter sells to the cutting-up
houses, to jobbers, and to retailers, or,
in fact, to whatever trade he seeks.
Large and profitable businesses have thus
been built up. Many converters have
adopted their own distinctive trade marks,
and since the goods that they handle are
known by these trade marks, the identity
of the mill which made them originally is
often entirely unknown to the ultimate
consumer. The converter can give his
business to whatever mill, at the time, will
give him the best value for his money.

Jobbers Must Know
Status of Mills

These operations are facilitated by the
services of another class of intermediaries,
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 entire market,
and ascertain what was being offered.
Hence he is likely to go to the cloth brokers.
They are in touch with all the principal
manufacturing sources of supply,
and will have daily quotations of the offerings
of the different mills; he will know
which mills are “sold up,” and which are
open for business, and what class of goods
they desire to sell. Consequently the
cloth brokers are in a position to offer to
would-be purchasers a wide variety of the
different cloths which are available on the
market, and it is their business to buy
from the mills as cheaply as they can,
and so get the best possible price for their
customers. The transactions are handled
on a small commission, and the average
buyer, in many kinds of goods, is able to
do much better by working through a
broker than by opening negotiations
directly with the mill.

Most Mills Have
Offices in Chief Markets

Mills selling their products through
brokers in this manner may, or may not,
have a representative stationed in the
goods market, according to circumstances.
Mills, manufacturing a limited number of
plain fabrics, and which do not sell
through brokers, may also be without
representatives in the primary goods market,
and will dispose of their product
directly from the mills, partly by correspondence,
and partly through the efforts
of their travelers. The great mass
of the mills, however, are regularly and
efficiently represented in the great central
goods markets, principally New York,
though also in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
and elsewhere, and their selling
agencies are very highly organized institutions.

These establishments which have sufficient
capital to enable them to finance
themselves—with or without the assistance
of regular bankers’ loans—may
maintain their own selling offices, and
market their product in their own names
directly to their customers. The amount
of capital required to handle a business in
this way is proportionately very large, for
the concern must be able to keep itself sufficiently
30
supplied with raw materials, and
then to carry the expenses as these materials
pass through the slow stages of manufacture
until the goods are finally finished,
after which they may have to be
kept in stock for a time until the delivery
dates, and then, after shipment, the accounts
have to be carried until the bills
are paid, so that, from the time the manufacturer
pays for his raw material until
he finally receives pay for his goods is a
very long period.

Loans Made Upon
Warehouse Receipts

The financing of a business conducted
in this way can be assisted by loans from
warehouses upon stocks of raw material
stored there, by bank accommodation,
and by facilities which certain banks give
for the cashing of a substantial percentage
of those accounts on the books of the concern
which the customers have not discounted
themselves. Also, in handling
his merchandise in this way, the manufacturer
must have a thorough understanding
of the best means of marketing his
product, and this care of the selling end is,
of course, an added burden upon his
shoulders which, in many cases, he may
not feel competent to handle properly.

Therefore, the comparatively few concerns
which do have sufficient capital to
sell directly, in addition to the many from
great to small who have not, will market
their product through what are known as
dry goods commission houses, sometimes
referred to as factors, and simply as commercial
bankers. The commission house
system, as we have it here, does not exist
anywhere else, and its great growth in the
United States has been largely due to
certain peculiarities in our banking methods,
which have prevented mills—even
those with a reasonably sufficient supply
of capital—from obtaining the amount
of direct banking accommodation necessary
for their needs.

The commission house, in its usual
relations with its mills, undertakes to
conduct the sale of their products. Some
commission agents insist upon having
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 to sell. Others, again, will
take over a partial selling control of the
product of a mill, and various lines of the
same manufacturer may be found offering
through different channels. There are
some obvious disadvantages connected
with this latter procedure.

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

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

Factors Provide
Selling Facilities

The factor often provides a store, together
with a complete selling and office
force, and every facility for receiving,
storing, selling, and shipping the goods,
and for financing the business. The salesmen
of the house travel throughout the
country, reaching all the important markets,
and the managers of the different
departments, who thus understand the
needs of the market, are in a position to
advise the mill with intelligence and exactness
as to the kind of goods which should
be made to meet the requirements of the
trade. The cost of warehousing and of
31
insurance on the merchandise is also paid
by the commission agent.

Spinning room in a large mill. These are all ring spindles

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 market conditions. As the goods
are sold, the amounts which they bring
are credited to the mill, less whatever
has been advanced against them. The selling
agent also stands ready, no matter on
what time and terms the goods 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 may
pay, and from this interest charge also
he secures part of his return. Of course
if bank rates are very high, as they sometimes
are for short periods, the factor
may be out of pocket on the interest account,
instead of making profit. As the
goods are sold, so are the equities in them
released, and the balance is credited to the
mill. If, however, the goods sell at a loss
there will be no equities coming to the
mill, and, in fact, 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 4 and 8% of the net
returns of the sales. Plain unfinished
goods which are marketed in large quantities
are charged for at a relatively low
figure, while fancy goods, sold in smaller
quantities and requiring more effort and
expense to sell them, are charged for at a
higher figure.

The selling agent also guarantees the
credits of the firms to which he sells, so
that no losses for bad debts can fall upon
32
the manufacturer, but, at the same time,
he will decline orders from any concerns
except those with whose credit he is entirely
satisfied.

Not infrequently when the manufacturer
conducts his own selling operations,
he will use the facilities afforded by the
commission house for the financial part of
the business only, taking advances on his
goods, having his sales cashed, and his
credits guaranteed, etc. For these lesser
services, of course, the commissions
charged are smaller.

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

Making Plain Goods
for Future Orders

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

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

Strength of Agents
Makes “Paper” Acceptable

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

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

NO
industry shows better than the cotton
industry the economic importance
of banking service. No industry, perhaps,
utilizes to such a complete extent the
modern instruments of credit, nor is so
dependent upon these instruments for its
proper functioning. At no point in the
progress from seed to cloth is the capital
represented by the cotton necessarily or
even customarily tied up. And not only
may the cotton itself at any stage be the
basis of credit accommodation, but also,
the actual added value which the labor of
any factor in the chain may give to the
cotton may itself be realized upon in advance.
The credit possibilities of the industry
have grown with the admission of
acceptances to rediscount in the Federal
Reserve Banks, and this admissibility has
likewise played a part in the present
growth of the warehouse system, the lack
of which was a handicap to the industry
in past years.

Credit Necessary from Seed
to Finished Product

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

The utilization of credit begins, as we
have seen, with the very planting of the
crop. Many of the growers, even those
who own their farms, are men of limited
means, and are not able to pay for the
necessaries of life and of labor during the
long growing season. The country storekeeper,
accordingly, in return for a lien on
the crop, allows them credit at his store,
usually charging interest based on the
monthly statement of their ledger accounts.
He in turn receives the necessary
accommodation for his own purchases
from the local bank, or from the local
buyer or factor with whom he is affiliated.
The high prices prevailing during the past
few years have undoubtedly changed to
some extent the small grower’s financial
position.

Cash for the Grower
From the Local Bank

The larger growers, or the great corporations
which let out cotton lands to renters,
usually operate the stores in their villages
upon the same basis, credit being
advanced against the renter’s share of the
growing crop. Even these large corporations
are seldom able to meet the heavy
demands of the growing season without
recourse to the credit service of those 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 paper thus created with their
correspondent banks in New York, Boston,
or other financial centers. This credit
arrangement, it will be seen, is almost
entirely based on a moral risk, the lien
being made upon the growing cotton
which cannot be liquidated until it is
grown, picked, and ginned.

When the crop is picked, it is weighed
by the merchant before it is ginned, and
34
the farmer is credited on the merchant’s
books with the amount due him, the balance
in his favor being given him in cash.
His concern with the cotton is thus ended.
In the event that he is able to finance himself
through the season he takes the cotton
directly to the gin, and has it ginned and
baled there, paying the ginnery for the
operation, and selling the cotton directly
to a local buyer and the seed to an oil mill.
If the gin warehouse
is available, and he
desires to wait for a
more favorable opportunity
to sell, he
may store the cotton,
taking a gin receipt
for it, against
which the cotton
will eventually be
delivered. The gin
receipt may be collateral
for a loan
from a cotton factor,
or from a local
bank.

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

The buyers make arrangements with
the local bankers where the gins are located
for the payment of the cotton, the
banks furnishing the actual cash against
tickets issued by the buyer’s representatives,
holding the tickets in question as
their collateral in the meantime. When a
sufficient amount of cotton has been accumulated
the local banker, at the request
of the buyer’s agent, delivers the
tickets in question to the local agent of the
railroad, who in turn issues a bill of lading
covering the shipment to the compress
point, which then is attached to the draft
drawn by the buyer’s agent upon the
buyer’s head office, which draft includes
the price paid for the cotton plus interest
and exchange
charged by the local
banker, who is
reimbursed for the
amount of the draft
thus drawn. When
this cotton is ready
for export (or for
shipment to the
mill in the United
States) local bills of
lading, covering
shipment from
point of origin to
compress point, are
exchanged by the
cotton buyer’s
banker for local
bills of lading to
port or for through
bills of lading.

“Picked 100 pounds today“

When cotton is
bought at compress
points, compress
receipts instead of
tickets are delivered
to the local banker,
who pays for the cotton as purchased by
the buyer’s representative from time to
time. When a sufficient amount of cotton
is ready for shipment the compress receipts
are exchanged by the banker for
local bills of lading to port (or to mill), or
through bills of lading, as the case may be.
These bills of lading are attached to the
draft drawn by the representative on the
head office of the buyer, the local bank being
reimbursed for the amount thus drawn.
35

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

While the buyers by cash payments are
concentrating the cotton necessary to fill
their domestic or foreign orders, their
need for funds is a pressing one. Their
arrangements with local banks we have
seen. When the cotton is shipped, the
local bank, by means of drafts on the buyer’s
head office, is relieved of the burden
it has been carrying, but the cotton still
represents capital, and if that capital is
to continue to earn its wages it must be the
basis for credit. The factors and large
banks in New York or Boston, which have
been assisting the local bank, must now
assist the buyer and the warehouseman.
The methods by which this burden is
shifted to the larger banks are varied, and
we can consider only one or two of their
aspects.

Same Mills Pay Cash, Relieving
Factors of Burden

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

Warehousemen as Factors of
Growing Importance

The growing importance of the warehouseman
has been mentioned. His services
have developed with the need of mills
for greater credit, and their unwillingness
to tie up their working capital in cotton
held in their own warehouses. Mills
which formerly bought all their year’s
supply during the buying season, so-called,
now take their cotton from warehouses as
they want it, buying it from their buyers,
and making payment according to the individual
standing arrangements. The advent
of the warehouseman who is either
a banker, or closely affiliated with a bank,
has undoubtedly done much to make the
financing of cotton a more elastic and
feasible proposition, distributing the risk
over a wider circle and making credit
more readily available at any point in
the succession.

Weighing gin bales in a ginnery yard

36

Cotton warehouses in the South

The mill, we have seen, frequently pays
cash for its raw stock, or else buys upon
short term notes. The average mill does
not have a working capital large enough
to enable it to tie up the thousands of
dollars necessary for such a proceeding,
as well as the funds which must constantly
be paid out for wages, for operation
expenses of all kinds, for upkeep, and
all other overhead. Mills, as a matter of
fact, are frequent borrowers, either from
general banks, or from textile banks or
factors, or from their selling agents, who,
as we have seen, combine their primary
and original function of selling with that
of supplying financial assistance.

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

The raw cotton itself, however, represents
only a portion of the mill’s operating
expenses and it cannot be the entire basis
for financial operations of the magnitude
often needed. These broader financial
wants may be met out of the prospective
selling price of the cloth by means of loans
from the selling agent; or, they may be
met by direct relations with a commercial
bank, which may make loans on ordinary
collateral, on acceptances, or, as frequently
happens in the case of mills of
undoubted integrity, on the mere note of
the company operating the mill.

Selling Agent May Shift
Burden to Banks

When the burden is assumed by the
selling agent, or factor, he in turn may
shift it to the bank, either by indorsing
the note of the mill, or by indorsing the
note of the purchaser of the cloth or by
borrowing directly from the bank on his
own paper.
37

The converter, as a rule, is not a factor,
but a merchant pure and simple, seeking
accommodations from a factor or a bank
as his needs may require 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 are frequently
heavy. His relation with his factor
may be, and frequently is, upon the
basis of accounts receivable, or he may
borrow upon his own collateral, or, if he
is counted an “A1” risk, upon his unsecured
note.

These, in brief are the financial steps
in the progress of cotton from the grower
to the jobber. A cursory view is all that
is possible, because in the words of a textile
banker of standing “every textile
banking transaction is a law unto itself.”
Yet enough has been said to show the all-important
part which banking plays in
the cotton industry, and to indicate how
dependent are the turning of wheels and
the distribution of cotton and of cloth
upon the credit which banks and bankers
are able to provide.

Factors and Their Wide
Financial Service

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

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

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

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

Thus, despite the very remarkable
growth which had taken place between
1910 and 1913, the United States ranked
fifth among the nations exporting cotton
goods. The reasons for this might be summed
up in almost a word. The attractiveness
and rapid growth of the home market
provided an outlet for practically the
whole output of American mills. With
high prices prevailing in the home market,
the manufacturer was not called upon to
exert himself to stimulate sales in regions
where competition would inevitably be
keen and profits small.

Minor Handicaps to
Trade Development

Supporting this main objection there
have been others. Until recently the
banking facilities abroad were insufficient
to the needs of a greater commerce; and
shipping facilities, in pre-war days, were
not such as to make regular shipments
39
possible to many foreign markets. Over
these conditions manufacturers had not
direct control, but there were other matters
in which their own short-comings
were all too evident. There is little need
to list again the familiar complaints,
known to every reader of Commerce Reports
and the export magazines. Faulty
packing and insufficient attention to orders
were the most frequent. The former
was undoubtedly due to inexperience, and
the latter to the tendency of the manufacturer
or merchant to consider the foreign
market as a place for disposing of a
surplus unsalable at home. To this attitude
may also be attributed the frequency
with which shipments for which orders
had been accepted have been delayed or
overlooked altogether.

Compress bales awaiting export on a Savannah wharf

The foreign market remained for the
American manufacturer a prize so distant
and of such questionable value that he was
simply not willing to make the effort and
spend the money that would be necessary
to compete with British, German, French,
and other sellers. He would have had to
know local customs and tastes, and all the
details that he had so arduously acquired
a knowledge of for the home market. The
time was not ripe.

U. S. Export Trade
As Affected By War

The war served to disarrange the system
of cotton cloth distribution of the
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 the first time in entering in
force markets which hitherto had been
closed. It would probably be truer to say
that foreign buyers, finding it impossible
to secure their customary supply from
their regular sources, came to the United
States and asked American manufacturers
to supply their imperative wants.

Just what this meant is found in the
statement that while in 1913 our total
exports of cotton goods amounted to
about 445,000,000 yards, in 1917 the figure
was about 690,000,000 yards, an increase
of fifty-five per cent. The increase,
40
moreover, has been in the colored cottons,
the uncolored cloths showing an actual
decrease.

The United Kingdom, during 1917, exported
nearly 5,000,000,000 yards of cloth,
so there is no immediate prospect that the
United States will be a dangerous competitor
for that country, except in a few limited
lines and in a few markets. The chief
gain to the American cotton industry
brought by the war was the opportunity it
gave merchants to introduce their goods
abroad at a time when loss was next to
impossible. Operating at an assured
profit they were able to learn the markets
without the long and discouraging fight
which would have been necessary had the
competitive power of the other nations
been at full force. If, as seems likely, the
economic forces which projected the
United States so suddenly and dramatically
into the world’s markets shall continue
to operate, then the future will see a
further development of our sales.

Future of Foreign Sales
And Probable Markets

Our best and most permanent markets
are probably to be found in such countries
as Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Central
and South America, and, to a certain
extent, Canada and Australia, and parts
of Asia and Africa. To be sure, competition
will have to be met both from European
countries and from Japan, whose
development in the cotton industry in recent
years has been nothing short of phenomenal.
She has practically doubled
the number of her spindles in the last ten
years, and her competition has already
been felt, for instance, in China, where
American gray goods have been practically
eliminated from the market. Other
growing 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 advantage of a preferential
tariff agreement and excellent
shipping facilities. In Canada and Australia
our cotton goods are popular but
the tariff duties are in favor of Great
Britain. In the Dutch East Indies there
is at present a good opportunity for getting
a foothold in the white goods trade.
Argentina has lately been our best market
for cotton goods, and as the imports
of cotton products into that country
amounted to $65,000,000 in 1916, this
trade is worth the intensive efforts which
are now being made to clinch it.

Future Development
Up to Merchants

On the west coast of South America, as
in the Manila market, there are established
American trading firms that are
doing extensive development work and
their efforts have produced favorable
results. In the other Latin-American
markets there are practically no local
American firms and in none of them have
the possibilities of the trade been more
than touched.

The general opinion seems to be that
if the United States is to keep what she
has gained by the war in the cotton goods
trade the same care and aggressiveness
will have to be shown in the foreign as in
the domestic trade. England’s position
today as the foremost exporter of cotton
manufactures is the result of careful
study of foreign markets and their requirements,
of catering to the tastes of
the people, of aggressive advertising, of
competent foreign salesmen, of reliability
in filling orders, of good packing, and of
more or less liberal credit terms. Manufacturers
in the United States will have
to follow the same procedure if this
country is to keep her present position
in international trade.

EARLY
in the spring, the farm hands
begin the work of getting the seed
beds ready. Upland fields have to be terraced,
ditched, and drained by an elaborate
process before the work is well
begun. Plowing and sub-soiling are the
least of the planter’s worries. He must
often chop last year’s stalks with a disc
harrow or with a stalk cutter. The spike
tooth or the disc harrow must work again
after the plowing is finished. It is customary
to plant cotton in a slightly raised
bed, in order that thinning may be more
easily done, and that the soil may be more
quickly warmed. Much planting is still
done by hand, one man dropping the
seeds in the long straight furrow and another
following close behind him with a
hoe, covering them up; but of late years
the one-horse planter and the two-horse
combined lister and planter have come
into vogue, and, now that the tractor is
both cheap and serviceable, it is possible
to plant two or more rows at a time.

The Long Season of
Intensive Cultivation

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

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

The Many Enemies
of the Growing Boll

Of the plants upon which humanity
depends, the various species of the genus
Gossypium have probably more enemies,
and more relentless enemies, than any
other. Besides army worms, cut worms,
locusts, green flies, leaf bugs, blister mites,
and several others, nature has produced
and rendered extremely prolific and
hardy, these two particular pests, the
boll weevil and the boll worm. It is
said that the collective attacks of all
the insects 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 the world knows as
42
the cotton boll weevil is responsible for
most of this. The mother weevil lays her
eggs in the bud. As the grubs from the
eggs develop, the bud drops. If a weevil
arrives on the scene after the bolls have
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 a variety
of cotton impervious
to the weevil’s
attacks, as well as
to find another insect
willing to meet
him in combat and
overcome him.
Guatamalan cotton
is said to be immune
and efforts
are being made to
transplant it to the
United States. A
small ant-like creature
called a “kelep”
has also been found,
which attacks, kills
and devours the
weevil, but, unfortunately,
the kelep prefers a warmer
clime, and pines away and dies in even
the mild winters of the cotton belt. The
boll worm is very similar to the corn
worm with which all housewives are familiar,
and indeed 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 boll weevil cost the
country about $25,000,000 yearly, pre-war
prices, and the boll worm about $12,500,000
yearly, enough to justify an even
greater expenditure for investigation and
eradication than has yet been made.

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

Cotton blossoms and bolls at various stages of growth

The planter will
tell you that he
would be willing to
stand the boll weevil,
the dropped
bolls, the extra cultivations,
and all
the remainder of it,
if he could only be
sure that cotton
which did mature
would be picked
when it should be
picked, and picked
with rapidity and
care. Picking is the
most laborious, as
it is the most picturesque
operation
on the plantation.
Many types of machine
pickers have
been introduced, but there are few planters
who will admit that any of them suits his
particular needs. Now, as a hundred years
ago, the picking is done by hand. It is
a simple operation, so simple that children
ten years old can do it, and women
excel in it. But the best pickers rarely
average more than a hundred pounds a
day, and most of them pull much less.
Careless work plays its part, too, for cotton
is easily dropped from the boll and
soiled or lost altogether. Leaves and twigs
as well as the shell of the boll frequently
cling to the fiber, and are picked with it,
and all these things tend to dirty and discolor
it, and lessen its marketability. It
43
requires about three pounds of cotton
with the seed in it, as picked, to produce
one pound of ginned or lint cotton.

There were in the United States, in
1917, a total of 24,272 ginneries, of which
3,921 were idle. Each active gin produced
an average of 526 bales running bales of
cotton. The number of gins shows a tendency
to decrease every year, not rapidly,
but surely, and this despite the opposite
tendency of the crop. The Whitney gin
of the old days has been improved beyond
the dreams of its inventor. He boasted
that one man could do as much with his
machine as ten men without it. Today’s
gin averages about five bales a day—a
quantity which the negro of old would
find difficult to turn out in a year.

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

Gin bale and compress bale showing reduced bulk of latter

As the downy lint, pulled from the tenacious
seeds, rolls into the receiving bin
of the gin, the huge compressors are put
to work. The coarse jute bagging is on
hand, and the steel straps spread out.
44
The gin balers as a rule turn out a bale
measuring approximately 28 by 56 by 42
inches, and weighing approximately 500
pounds including twenty pounds of bagging
and straps. The cotton, in being separated
from its seeds, has lost about two-thirds
of its weight. But the first process
in the long series that manufacturing entails
has been completed, and the cotton
is ready to begin its long journey to the
mill. It is usually carted to the nearest
railroad station, and from there shipped
to the compressing point.

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

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

Gin Bales and
Compress Bales

Before being compressed, the bales are
sorted according to grade, and are then
compressed into a smaller sized bale,
measuring approximately 28 by 56 by 18
inches, with a density of from twenty-eight
to thirty pounds a square 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 as market
conditions change, and the price offered
makes reshipment profitable.

Movement for
Improving the Bale

It is encouraging to note that the war
brought about, under Government auspices,
a very definite movement for the
improvement of the bale. The proposal
demands the installation of high pressure
baling machines at the gin, capable of producing
a bale with a density of thirty-five
pounds a cubic foot. The trading unit in
cotton is one hundred bales, and such a
compression would mean that one hundred
bales could be loaded into a single
freight car, and shipped directly to the export
point or warehouse. The present
practice requires three cars to carry the
ginnery bales to the compressor, and two
cars to carry the compressed bales to the
port, warehouse, or mill. The saving in
freight and handling is obvious. It needs
only a glance at the photograph of the two
bales side by side to see the possible saving
in waste and “city crop,” or tare. The
obstacles in the way of such an improvement
are those which face any revolutionary
change in commercial methods.
Established practice, invested capital, and
the natural conservatism of human nature
militate against quick improvement.

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

Before the cotton fiber can be spun into
the yarn from which the cloth is woven,
the bales must be broken open, the impurities
removed, and the fibers arranged
so that they are parallel and contain no
bunches or tangles. Care in these processes
has become more and more necessary
and important as the demand for a
higher quality of cloth, possessing greater
strength and evenness, has been developed.
Hence, some of the most elaborate,
complex, and admirable machinery in the
mill is that devoted to these preparatory
processes. The principle involved is always
that of thoroughly cleaning the material,
then opening it so that every fiber
shall be thoroughly separated from its
fellows, and then straightening out the
fibers, no matter what types of machines
may be used.

Conveying Fiber
By Air Blast

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

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

The Energetic
Opener At Work

As the cotton goes into the opener
(see diagram on following page), dusty
and dirty, it is seized by strong teeth
fastened upon a large cylinder (A), revolving
rapidly, and is flung by centrifugal
force against an iron grid (B) time after
time. Sometimes there is a strong current
of air blowing through the tangled mass,
helping to loosen the particles. The dirt
comes out through the grid and is carried
away, while the lint itself, after being carried
around an indefinite number of times,
gradually works its way along a channel, and
finally out between two large 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 the first doubling or
blending process. In mills where strength
and evenness of yarn are at a premium,
the sheets from three or four laps may be
fed through another opener, usually called
a “scutcher,” which breaks them all apart
again, mixes up the fibers, cleans out more
of the dirt, and produces a more even lap.

The cotton, as it comes from the opener
and the scutcher, is much cleaner and
46
more attractive. It begins to look like
the riches it contains.

Cross-section diagram of opener

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

The fibers of the lap which comes from
the opening room are by no means parallel,
but lie in all directions just as they
happened to come from the 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 of a length below that required
for the yarn to be spun, and to
take out practically all of the impurities
which may have escaped
in the opening
operations.

The principle of
carding is one of the
oldest of textile mechanical
principles,
and all the improvements
that have
been made have
been in developments
rather than
in basic ideas. Hargreaves,
inventor of
the jenny, and Sir
Richard Arkwright
both expended their ingenuity upon it,
the latter seeming to have been the first
to provide a carding machine operated
by other than hand-power. The basic
principle involved is the straightening
out of the fibers by combing or brushing
them with wire brushes or cards.

“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 the smallest of the three, called
the taker-in, which is covered with very
fine saw-teeth all in one long strip of steel,
wound and fixed spirally in the surface of
the cylinder. The taker-in receives the cotton
from a feed-roller (C) that turns above
a smooth iron plate (D) called the feed
plate. The saw-teeth
comb the fibers
which are imbedded,
so to speak, in the
lap, and deliver the
loose ones to the second
cylinder, which
is the largest of the
group. This main
cylinder is covered
with wire teeth all
bent at exactly the
same angle. The
cotton clings to
them, and is carried
around to the top
47
of the cylinder, where it is engaged by
teeth on the revolving-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 so the fibers are carded
between the two sets of wire points, the
short and immature fibers remaining on
the card wires of the lattice and the
perfect and now almost entirely parallel
ones being carried over from the main
cylinder to the doffer cylinder, the third
of the trio. From this they are removed
by an oscillating comb (F), coming off in
a light, fleecy lap, which is condensed
through a funnel into a soft untwisted
roping, or sliver, about the diameter of
a man’s thumb, and is then coiled into a
can, usually about 45 inches high by 8
inches diameter.

View of Modern Motor-Driven Opener Picker

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

Combing Necessary in
Spinning Fine “Counts”

Combing is necessary in the preparation
of cotton for the spinning of fine “counts”
or coarser yarns where great smoothness
and regularity are desired. They are
now quite extensively used in the United
States, and it is significant of the trend
of the industry here that the number is
rapidly growing. The first cotton comber
was invented by a Frenchman of Alsace
named Heilmann. The patent was issued
in 1845. Now there are on the market
other machines, both English and American,
similar in principle but improved
in many ways.

48

Revolving flat cards

The first of these
preliminary processes
is that which
is done by the sliver-lapper.
The
slivers from 14 to
20 cans are drawn
along side-by-side,
passing between
three pairs of drawing
rollers which
will be described
later. From the
drawing rollers the
slivers now reduced
in size, 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 are
placed end-to-end, and unrolled simultaneously,
passed between four pairs of 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 yarn desired
may require, for
each drawing process
served to
straighten the fibers
and so to render the
thread more even
and capable of finer
spinning.

Combing is exactly
what its name
implies. The lap is
actually raked by a
fine-tooth comb
with needle-like
teeth of steel ranging
from 16 to 90
per inch. This involves
breaking the
lap again and the intricacy of the comber
rests in the mechanism which it employs
for joining the separated ends.

Cross-section diagram of revolving flat card

Six or eight laps go through the machine
at once, and the product is combined,
condensed, formed into a continuous sliver,
and deposited once more into cans. The
process is not a fast one at best, and the
chief contribution of American inventors
is in the direction of speed. Each nip
combs only
⁴/₁₆
to
⁴/₁₀
of an inch of fiber.
49
The Heilman machine made about 85 or
90 nips per minute. The American improvement
makes 130 to 135. The width
of the lap in the American machine is likewise
increased, and the saving in labor,
therefore, is considerable. English improvements
have been in the same direction,
the resultant saving being almost as
great.

Ribbon lappers

Though many of the processes already
described might be called drawing, in a
sense, insomuch as they involve a continual
lengthening and straightening of the
lap or sliver, yet drawing in the strictest
sense has 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 and more expensive
products. The frame for each
repetition is slightly different, but several
types may be isolated. They are, in the
order of their use, the drawing frame, the
fly frame, or slubber, the intermediate
frame, and the roving and jack frames.

For fine counts the slivers from the
comber, and for other grades that which
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 one aperture, and pass, thus
combined, between several (usually four)
pairs of rollers, so arranged that each succeeding
pair revolves at a more rapid rate
than that which preceded it. The last
pair in the series revolve probably six or
eight times as fast as the first pair. This
combination of rollers pulls constantly on
the more or less irregular slivers, rendering
50
them always more nearly uniform in diameter
and density, the thickness of one of
the entering slivers serving to counterbalance
the thinness of the other. The drawing
frame consists usually of four or five
“heads,” and the sliver, after it passes
through one of these “heads,” is put
through a second one, along with other
slivers, so that the doubling and redoubling
goes on constantly. There is an electric
device to stop the machine when a
sliver breaks, either at the back or the
front of the frame.

Combers at work in a mill spinning fine counts

From the last head of the drawing
frame, the sliver passes to the fly frame or
slubber, which not only continues the
drawing and doubling, usually between
three pairs of rollers, but through the aid
of a device which 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, a U-shaped piece of
metal, which, revolving, inverted, over the
spindle, gives the thread a slight lateral
twist as it coils upon the spindle. The
latter also revolves, but with a diminishing
motion so that the amount of twist
may be kept uniform as the diameter of
the coil upon the spindle increases. 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 product being
less in diameter than the diameter of a
single slubbing. The machine combines
the fourfold process of combination, attenuation,
twisting and winding. There
are more spindles upon this frame than
upon the slubber.

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

Sliver lappers in a Northern mill

It is interesting to note, however, that
the majority of improvements have 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 in the consumption of cotton, but
that more probably it is due to the development
of fine spinning in England,
in which most of the machines here described
are chiefly valuable; and he ventures
the prediction that now that American
51
mills have definitely gone in for the
finer counts, it may be expected that engineers
here will apply themselves to the
improvement of this machinery.

Drawing frames, turning slivers into roving

The “Mule” Versus
the Ring Spindle

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

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

The mule, by reason of the great size
to which it has been developed, and the
impressiveness of its large, rhythmic
motion, is one of the most formidable of
all cotton machines, as indeed it is one of
the most complex. It received its name
from the fact that, performing two principal
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 drawing and twisting
are not continuous but consecutive. The
rovings (B) are held on a creel (A) at the
back of the machine, usually in three or
52
four tiers, 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 the creel and recedes somewhat faster
than the rovings are unwound. This receding
is the essential motion of the mule,
for thus the cotton receives its final drawing.
The spindles, meanwhile, are revolving
rapidly, spinning the yarn. The twist
goes first to the thin places where the least
resistance is offered. Then, as the carriage
carrying the whirling spindles continues
to back away, the thicker parts of
the thread, being comparatively untwisted
are pulled down to the average diameter
and are twisted in turn. The carriage
usually runs back about sixty-three inches.
At the termination of its run, or stretch,
the spindles increase their speed until the
twisting is completed and the carriage
starts on its return trip. This reverses
the spindles, and the thread which has
been wound upon them is unwound, the
slack being taken up by one guide wire (D)
while the other guides the thread to the
winding point, and winds it up in the opposite
direction on the cone-shaped cops
on the spindles. The rollers do not feed
out more roving as the carriage returns.
Hence, there is no slack when the round
trip is completed.

Slubbers, showing the U-shaped flyers

Except for the use of drawing rollers,
there is little similarity between the mule
and the ring frame. The latter has no
movable carriage, none of the splendid
sweep of motion that makes the mule so
53
fascinating to watch. The ring-frame is
simple and business-like, and its speed is
amazing. The bobbins holding the roving
are placed directly over the spindles.
Around each of the latter is a steel ring.
There are at least 112 spindles on each
machine, and all the machine rings for
the spindles are fixed in a single frame.
The upper edge of the ring is flanged, like
a miniature railroad track, and snapped
over the flange is a small but important
C-shaped steel ring, called the traveler.

How Thread is Spun
on 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) then through a
guiding wire to the ring, where it is passed
through its traveler (B) which is always at
the winding point on the spindle. As the
spindle and the rollers revolve, the roving
is fed out at a considerably slower rate
than the spindle takes it up, so that there
is always a tension on the thread. The
whirling spindle thus pulls on the traveler,
drawing it round and round on its flanged
track (A). It revolves just a little 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 and down, so that the winding
is properly regulated.

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

Diagram of mule

The battle between the advocates of the
ring frame and those who favor the mule
is still on. For the American spinner the
ring has undoubtedly many advantages.
Because it spins continuously, and not intermittently,
it turns out about a third
more yarn per operator. It is usually
admitted, however, that the thread from
the mule is more even in diameter. Advocates
of the mule say, moreover, that the
54
thread from the mule 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, the ring-spindle has an assured
place.

Mules at work

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

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

“Close-up” of Ring Spindle in American mill

One of the most
important inventions,
one that was
received with acclaim
by the American
manufacturer,
and one which
actually reduced his
labor cost on spooling
no less than ten
per cent. at one
clip, is a tiny little
thing that is held
in the palm of the
55
hand. This is the Barber knotter. When
a thread breaks, the attendant places the
two ends together in the machine and by
the mere pressure of her thumb ties the
knot much better than she could do it
without the knotter. The economies
which it effects extend beyond the mere
spooling, for better knots mean fewer
breaks in the 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 are usually 16 to
20 in one tier. The threads from the
spools are drawn between the dents of an
adjustable reed, then under and over a
series of rollers. From here they are led
down to the beam, upon which they are
wound. The revolving of the beam unwinds
the yarn from the spools and winds
it regularly and evenly upon the beam
itself. There is a device for measuring
the length of the warp wound, and stop
motions for arresting the operation should
a thread break or other accident occur.

Each operator at these spoolers has a Barber knotter on her hand

The yarn of the warp must usually be
impregnated with a sizing which will
smooth out and stick down its furry surface
and add as well to the tensile strength
so that the strain of weaving may be
withstood. For this the most effective
and most generally used machine is the
slasher, the chief feature of which is a roller,
whose lower side is immersed in the sizing
solution. Threads from the warp beam
are run around this roller through the
solution and then dried, after which it is
finally wound on another beam for the
loom. A considerable number of loom
56
beams can be filled from one set of the
warper beams mounted in the slasher.

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

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

Diagram of ring spindle

The modern cotton
loom, which automatically
removes the filling bobbins without
stopping the loom, is rapidly displacing
the older types, and one weaver can
now attend to a surprisingly large number
of looms, being greatly assisted also
by the automatic warp and filling “stop
motions.”

FOLLOWING
the manufacture of the
cloth, come the operations necessary to
prepare 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 the number
which are used in the actual spinning and
weaving operations.

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

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

Warping—The creel in the rear

Bleaching an Intricate
Chemical Process

In the bleaching of cotton, there is a
series of operations which have for their
object the elimination of the waxy, fatty
matters embodied in the fiber, as well as
any dirt which it may have acquired.
Then, there is the actual whitening and
the bleaching of the cloth which destroys
any coloring matter which it may contain
and finally there are treatments designed
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 a strong alkaline solution, which saponifies
the waxy, fatty matters in the fiber,
and thus removes them from the cloth
or yarn. Third, a steeping in a bleaching
solution—a solution of chloride of lime
being largely employed for this purpose,
and which treatment is known as the
chemic. Next, after another thorough
washing there is a treatment in diluted
sulphuric acid to neutralize the effects
of the chemic, and finally this is followed
again by another thorough washing with
possibly an additional mild alkaline treatment.
The nature and the method of all
these treatments varies considerably,
and depends upon the character of the
58
goods being treated, but, at the conclusion,
if all has gone well, the cloth should
be a good white and should not be impaired
in strength.

Singeing Necessary
in 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 is accomplished by passing
the cloth, stretched out at full width,
very rapidly over heated plates, or
through gas flames, so that the fine hairs
or fuzz are singed off, but the fabric itself
has not had time to take fire. Both sides
may be singed and the goods may be
passed more than once through the flame.
When yarns are singed, the threads are
passed through the flame very rapidly,
being unwound from one set of bobbins
and wound up on another.

Front view of an automatic loom

In the dyeing operation the cotton
piece goods pass through a series of machines,
the goods being in rope form as
already explained, so that a number of
pieces can be put into each machine, side
by side. The wash boxes, dye vats, etc.
are equipped with overhead rollers, by
means of which the goods, which have
been sewn end to end, so as to make a
continuous string of them, pass out of the
dye, over the roller and down into the
bath on the other side, continuing to
circulate around thus until the desired
results have been obtained. In addition
to the preparatory washing and boiling,
mordanting and dyeing, there are subsequent
washings to free the goods from
loose coloring matter, and other special
treatments are frequently accorded them.

Finishing in its special and restricted
sense, implies a series of treatments, such
as stretching, starching, dampening, drying,
pressing, smoothing, lustreing, glazing,
stiffening, softening, and whatnot,
which are given to them according to
the use to which they are to be put.
59

The printing press is constructed with a
large main cylinder (D), the size 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
continuous feeding of the cloth, a continuous
inking of the engraved rollers (C),
and a continuous cleaning off of the unengraved
surface after the inking.

Under each roller, where it is fixed in its
place in the press, is a long copper trough
or pan carrying the coloring material, and
in the pan under the roller, and extending
into the coloring matter, is an intermediate
roller known as the “furnisher”
roller, and, as the press revolves, this
covers 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 passes this it is quite clean, no coloring
remaining on it except that in the
engraved portion.

Each roller has its color pan with its own
color in it. Then, as the cloth (A) passes
between the main cylinder, properly covered
by suitable intervening materials and
the series of rollers, each roller in turn
prints its own color, and, collectively, the
finished pattern is produced.

Diagram of cloth printing machine

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

Printing on
Full Ground Colors

The foregoing briefly describes the processes
of direct printing. In this case, the
penetration of the colors to the opposite
side of the goods is not very good. If a
solid and full ground color is needed both
on the face 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 colored ground, the goods are
first printed with some substance which
will resist the action of the dye stuffs.
Then, when the goods are dyed, the
treated part does not take the color and
the substance used as a resist is washed
out, 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, and are
then treated with certain chemicals which
destroy the dyed color wherever they
touch the fabric, these chemicals being
subsequently washed out where they
have been applied, and thus again a white
figure can be had in the colored ground.
By the “Discharge” method, moreover,
colored figures can also be printed on
colored grounds, as certain colorings have
been developed which are not affected by
the discharge materials used, hence, a
whole series of beautiful colors can be
60
printed on goods previously dyed with
black or colored grounds, each color being
mixed with a suitable chemical for discharging
the ground color, and thus the
colors of the printed pattern come out as
desired.

Another important process which is applied
to both cotton yarn and cotton
fabrics is that known as mercerization,
called after “Mercer” an English chemist
who introduced the process. Cotton when
subjected to the action of strong, caustic
alkali contracts violently, but when again
stretched and straightened it is found to
have acquired a distinct silkiness of appearance,
and under the microscope the
twisted ribbon-like fibers of the material—already
referred to—will be found to
have become straight, glossy and rodlike,
just as a bicycle tire would appear after
air was blown into it.

Cotton may be mercerized either in the
yarn, warp, skein, or in the piece, the
first being more effective. The best and
most satisfactory results are achieved
when the material treated is made of fine
long staple cotton, either Sea Island or
Egyptian, the shorter cottons being relatively
much less improved by the treatment.
The mercerizing does not diminish
the strength of the material, and gives to
it a greater affinity for dye stuffs.

Internal Organization
of Cotton Mills

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

In between these two there are, according
to the individual mill, a dozen or more
other foremen, all reporting regularly to
the superintendent, all captains of their
own companies of workers, and all keen,
in the interests of their own reputations,
to operate their departments as intelligently,
as efficiently, and with as little
friction with their individual operators as
possible. For it is generally recognized
throughout the cotton industry that
profitable business depends as much upon
the whole-hearted cooperation of the
wage-earners, as upon any other single
factor.

The Question of
Individual Efficiency

As for the operators themselves, they
are so varied, there are so many problems
which they have to face, and such difficulties
which those who employ and direct
them have to solve, that anything like
adequate consideration is impossible.
From the impersonal viewpoint, leaving
out of account the human elements, the
problems of wages, and the correlated
problem of trade organization, there remains
the question of individual efficiency.
It is that which we have chiefly
to consider.

Inspecting finished cloth

The number of men, women, and children
employed in the cotton mills of the
country has increased at a very high rate,
but there has been an interesting diminution
61
in the proportionate percentage of
women and children under sixteen years
of age employed.

The United States Census of Manufacturers
gives the following figures:

AVERAGE NUMBER OF EMPLOYES IN
AMERICAN COTTON MILLS

In percentages these figures express
themselves as follows:

The question of nationality has had an
important bearing upon the development
of the industry in the United States. The
constant influx into the country of successive
waves of immigration from the
different countries of Europe has often
served in a decade to change the whole
complexion of the labor question. In the
original New England mills, the employees
were of almost pure English stock. The
sons and daughters of the Yankee farmers
entered the mills, not as a permanent
occupation, but merely as a means of
getting a start in life.

Just before the Civil War, the Irish began
to come rapidly, and the actual advent
of that struggle saw a great number of
the remaining natives leaving for the
army, or thrown out of work. When the
fighting was 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 New England
states, and there also came, in quick succession,
natives of Italy, and of the various
states of eastern Europe.

Baled cloth being put aboard waiting freight cars

This change in the national complexion
had two very important results. It brought
into the country a constant stream of cheap
labor, polyglot, and lacking in homogeneity,
and consequently slow at first to
unionize and strike. This characteristic
brought another in its train—a lack of
stability, and a proneness to transiency.
The second result was hardly less important.
It meant that though labor was
relatively plentiful, much of it was unskilled.
This lack of skill put a premium
upon quantity production, and led to
efforts to develop automatic machinery
and labor-saving devices of all kinds. It
compelled most American manufacturers
to specialize upon the coarser kinds of
yarns and cloths, made in simple weaves
and patterns, in the making of which the
minimum amount of skilled labor was required.

Native Stock
in Southern Mills

Conditions in the South were somewhat
different. From the beginning, the employes
here have been almost entirely of
native stock. They came from a class
which previously had little opportunity
for any employment of a regular character
62
outside of farming. When the mills
were built these folks were given, for the
first time, an opportunity for continuous
employment. Whole families entered the
mills, fathers, mothers and children serving
in different or in the same departments.
The South at first specialized on
ducks, twills, denims, and such coarse
work. Now, however, there is a growing
tendency to diversify the product. The
reason is found in the increasing capability
of the workers, many of whom have by
now spent many years of their lives in
the mills, and whose fathers before them
were operatives. Unless present conditions
change and the South becomes the
mecca of immigrants—a development
probably less likely now than in the years
before the war—there seems to be a strong
possibility that a class of operatives, rivalling
eventually in skill those of the English
mill towns, will be developed. The
stock is the same, and the latent capabilities
are all there. The determining factors
will probably be the economic changes
of the next few years.

A remaining factor in the organization
of the mill is the size of the individual
plant, the number of spindles and looms it
contains, the number of workers employed,
etc. It is in just this particular
that some of the most characteristic developments
of the American industry are
found. About the time of the Civil War,
the average New England mill had less
than ten thousand spindles. Today the
average is probably between fifty and one
hundred thousand, and perhaps nearer the
latter figure than the former. Some of the
mills have nearly, if not quite, a full million
spindles in several buildings. The
average in the South is much less than the
New England average. The industry in
the older section is definitely localized,
even to the extent of having whole towns
devoted almost exclusively to the manufacture
of single grades of cloth. In the
South the mills are more widely scattered,
advantage having been taken of labor supply,
water power, and other conditions.
Local pride has sometimes caused the establishment
of mills in regions economically
unfitted for them. Such mills do not
long survive. The advantage of large
scale production has thus been seized
chiefly by the New England mills, but the
generally lower wages of the South have
tended to equalize the situation.

Original Whitney cotton gin, preserved in Smithsonian Institute in Washington