re.

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
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, 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.

_Spindles
_County_ (Number)_
Bristol, Mass. 7,294,221
Providence, R. I. 1,709,713
Middlesex, Mass. 1,082,752
Hillsborough, N. H. 907,245
Spartanburg, S. C. 831,476
Windham, Conn.