Statistics of the cotton manufacture, &c.-Continued. * Evidently erroneous; probably three mills, and eighteen persons employed. The report of the seventh United States census (for 1850) does not mention cotton mills or spindles. Its statistics of the cotton manufacture specify the capital employed, value of the production, number of persons employed, and some other items of information that would be useful if they were reliable. It fails to supply the details necessary to a comparision of the cotton manufacture in 1850 with that of 1840 and 1860. In a compendium of the seventh census, prepared by J. D. B. DeBow in 1854, are to be found some statistics that were omitted in the large quarto report. Some of these are included in Table 196 in the compendium, upon "cotton manufactures, 1850." Still the table,' like the census report, omits mention of the cotton spindles, and as an exhibit of the manufacturing capacity of the cotton mills in the several States is very unsatisfactory and inaccurate. The number of mills in Rhode Island, their capital and their product, are set down as less in 1850 than they were by the census of 1840, when, in fact, there had been a large increase. According to the annual cotton crop statement, published by the New York Shipping List for the year 1849-50, the total quantity of cotton taken for home consumption that year was 613,000 bales, for all uses, north and south, of which not more than 600,000 bales could have been consumed by the spinning machinery. DeBow's table states the con 1 The table referred to is copied (without credit, however) into the Supplement on Cotton Statistics and Manufactures, by P. L. Simmonds, appended to the edition of Ure's Cotton Manufactures of Great Britain, published by Bohn, London, 1861. Our country should supply more carefully prepared statistics for use in the preparation of works so valuable as those of Ure and Simmonds. (See Vol. 1, page 436.) sumption of cotton at 641,240 bales, and so placed in the table as to bear the inference that it was consumed in the mills. If the cotton used in families for all purposes was included, then it would be nearer the right quantity. AVERAGES OF CONSUMPTION, SPINDLES, AND YARN. Through the well-directed efforts of the "National Association of Cotton Manufacturers and Planters," during the past year, some data have been obtained that are reliable and valuable as supplying a basis for computations of past as well as present and future quantities. In another place we shall make free use of their tables. For the present these facts should be noted: The present average annual consumption of cotton in all the United States is at the rate of 65 pounds per spindle; in the northern States the rate is 60.7 pounds, and in the southern States it is 138.12 pounds per spindle. The average size or number of yarn produced is as follows: In the United States, 27, in the north 28, in the south 127. There is a constant tendency to finer work as labor becomes more skilled and raw material more costly in proportion. Down to within a few years the number of yarn was as coarse as No. 14 in a large part of the northern production. The average now being 271⁄2, it cannot be far wrong to place the average size of yarn for 1860, No. 23; for 1850, No. 224; for 1840, No. 20. The consumption of 65 pounds of cotton per year to each spindle, for an average of No. 274 yarn, after allowing 20 per cent. gross waste, produces 52 pounds of yarn, equal to 1,430 hanks, which, for 300 working days, gives 4.76 hanks per day. The better machinery now affords a higher rate of production than was generally practicable for the same yarn in the same time some years ago. The coarser the yarn on equal speed, the greater will be the quantity of cotton used. Comparing the work in 1850 with that now done, it will be well to assume, in the absence of stated facts, that in the year 1850 the average number of yarn was 22; the average rate, 4.8 hanks per day; the cotton consumed in mills, 600,000 bales, equal to 264,000,000 pounds; which, at 80 pounds per year for each spindle, would require 3,300,000 spindles to work it up. Mr. Samuel Batchelder made a report to the Boston board of trade in 1861, upon the cotton manufacture, in which, by another process, he arrived at a result not widely different. DEFECTIVE STATISTICS. The errors in DeBow's compendium of the United States census for 1850 have been noticed. As the statistical work by the same compiler, J. D. B. DeBow, entitled "The Industrial Resources, &c., of the Southern and Western States," is often cited as good authority in matters per taining to cotton, its trade, and manufacture, it is well to say here, and show reason for saying, that its statistics generally in regard to manufactures of cotton are quite erroneous, and not to be accepted until verified.1 In volume 1, page 210, he says: "In 1840 the cotton used annually in our mills was 106,000,000 pounds; capital invested was [1] $80,000,000; annual value of cotton manufacture [2] $60,000,000. In the same year there were in operation in the New England States 1,590,140 spindles. The whole number of cotton spindles in the United States in 1850 was 2,500,000, showing an increase of 20 per cent. in the last ten years, [3.] Of the present actual condition of the cotton manufacture in this country we cannot speak with entire certainty until the returns of the census for 1850 are published. We are deficient in details, but for the figures given above, derived chiefly from a work on American cotton manufactures by Robert H. Baird, 1851, we can speak with confidence of the 2,500,000 [4] cotton spindles now in the United States; 150,000 are in the southern States and 100,000 in the western." The foregoing is a literal quotation. (1.) The census of 1840 stated the capital at $51,102,359. (2.) The census of 1840 stated the annual product at $46,350,453. (3.) Although the census of 1840 is not mentioned, and in other particulars its statistics are displaced by his own, here Mr. DeBow refers to the number of spindles in the census of 1840, upon which there is an increase of 20 per cent. (4.) There is nothing but bare assertion for the 2,500,000 spindles in 1850. See its contradiction by himself below. From page 220 of the same volume is quoted: "The following returns, based partly on the official census, show the number of mills and spindles in each of the New England States using cotton wholly, leaving out all of those engaged in the manufacture of warps for satinets, merino shirts, mousselaine delaines, and shawls of mixed materials, of which it forms a component part: "Mills, spindles, and looms in New England. † Here we see 2,754,078 spindles for New England alone, whereas in the statistics which he "could use with confidence," Mr. DeBow stated the number to be 2,500,000 for all the United States. 1 See Appendix K for another of Mr. DeBow's tables of cotton statistics. |