The one article of export that is of greatest importance in our
commerce is COTTON. The production of cotton in the United States is
enormous. It is not far short of 5,000,000,000 pounds per annum. This
is probably four times the amount produced upon the whole globe
elsewhere. Our export amounts annually to about 4,000,000,000 pounds,
with a total value of about $240,000,000. Our greatest competitors in
the world's cotton markets are Egypt and India. The export of cotton
from Egypt amounts to $50,000,000 annually. The export of cotton from
India amounts to $45,000,000 annually. At least one half of our export
of cotton goes to Great Britain. Our next greatest customers are (in
order) Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia. We send about
$7,500,000 worth annually to Japan, and $4,000,000 worth annually to
Canada. All our southeastern States produce cotton, but the States
that produce it most plentifully are (in order) Texas (about one third
of the whole), Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. The area under
cultivation in the whole country is about 21,000,000 acres, which is
about one sixth of the area devoted to corn, wheat, and oats, or one
half the area devoted to hay. The areas of greatest cotton production
are (1) the "Yazoo bottom," a strip on the left bank of the
Mississippi extending from Memphis to Vicksburg, and (2) the upper
part of the right bank of the Tombigbee. The productivity of cotton is
much higher in the United States than it is in India, averaging not
far short of 200 pounds per acre, as against less than 100 pounds in
India. In India, however, the cotton crop has been grown on the same
soil for ages, whereas in the United States the practice is to
substitute new soils for old ones as soon as crops begin to fail. On
the other hand, the United States cotton crop is much less per acre
than the crop in Egypt. There the yield per acre is from 300 pounds to
500 pounds. The remedy for this defect of productivity in our cotton
crop as compared with that of Egypt is manuring. Where the manuring is
properly attended to our cotton crop is comparable with Egypt's. But
the cotton of Egypt is of better quality than the great mass of the
cotton crop of the United States (the "upland" cotton crop). On the
other hand in the low, flat islands off the coast of Georgia and South
Carolina a species of cotton grows ("sea-island" cotton) which is the
finest in the world, its fibres being the longest, finest, and
straightest, of all cotton fibres produced anywhere, and the most
beautiful in appearance in the mass. Of this "sea-island" cotton about
three to four million dollars' worth is exported annually at a price
averaging from two and one fourth to two and three fourth times the
value per pound of the "upland" cotton. The great cotton ports of our
country are (in order of amount of exportation) NEW ORLEANS,
GALVESTON, SAVANNAH, NEW YORK, CHARLESTON, MOBILE, and WILMINGTON. New
Orleans' export is about a third of the whole, and Galveston's about a
fifth.