cents; one at four cents. Paul F. Hammond, of Beech island, furnishes the following: "The cost of production varies greatly with the character of the land cultivated, and the skill of the planter. The complement of hands and mules is two of the former and one of the latter. The items of expense are, wages of hands, meat for hands, cost per annum of mule, exclusive of feed; extra picking, guano, gear, implements, bagging and ties. One mule and two hands will cultivate, on an average, twenty acres in cotton, fourteen acres in corn and four acres in oats, making grain enough to furnish bread to the hands, and feed for the mule. I am inclined to think that 4,000 pounds of lint, including weight of bagging and ties, to the mule, is rather above than below the average. In some instances planters may reach a production of 8,000 or even 10,000 pounds of lint to the mule, while more frequently those who fall below 2,000 pounds may be met with. In the following estimates no allowance for taxes, rents, interest on capital invested, nor for the services of the proprietor or manager, nor for transportation or charges for selling, is made. Table showing the cost of each item of Labor and Material expended in the cultivation of an acre of Cotton in the Upper Pine Belt Region of South Carolina: ITEMS. Reut...... Fencing, repairs and interest on Pulling and burning stalks.. Other cleaning up.............. $200 $200 $300 $ 250 $250 $250 $ 4 00 8 4 00 $ 3 CO$ 3 00 8 3 75 50 Listing 50 1 20 1 15 1 10 1 30 1 35 25 31 16 888 50 138 13 13 6 00 500 2.50 35 50 1388 25 50 25 25 20 Wear and tear of implements... Bagging and ties....... Total...................... Cost per pound lint.......... Profit, per acre, at ten cents per pound...... Profit. deducting charges for rent and management..... 1 35 1 35 1 10 $31 55 $28 98 $26.90 $27 18 $25 12 $27 35 $35 75 $32 86 $31 43 $26 77 $36 78 08 09 4-5 $23 45 $11 02 $6 40 $11 92 811 88 $6 25 $2 45 $7 14 81 87 $6 53 $3 22 $26 45 $14 02 $14 40 $16 92 $14 30 $10 75 $3 55 $11 14 $7 87 $11 53 $11 22 1. E. H. Peeples, Lawton Township, Hampton county: Makes a bale of 450 pounds lint cotton per acre under this culture-seed cotton 1,350 pounds, cotton seed thirty bushels. 2. Homer H. Peeples, Peeples' Township, Hampton county: Average 1,200 pounds seed cotton, 400 pounds lint, twenty-seven bushels seed. 3. G. Varn, Esq., Folk's Store, Colleton county: Crop 1,000 pounds seed cotton, lint 333 pounds, seed twenty-two bushels. 4. W. B. Rice, Bamberg, Barnwell county: Crop 850 to 1,500 pounds per acre, say 1,175 seed cotton, average 391 pounds lint, twenty-six bushels seed, at twelve and a half cents. 5. John S. Stoney, Allendale, Barnwell county: Yield 1,200 pounds seed cotton, 370 pounds lint, seed twenty-two bushels. 6. O. N. Bowman, Rowesville. Orangeburg county: 1,100 pounds seed cotton, 370 pounds lint, twenty-six bushels seed. 7. E. T. Stackhouse, Little Rock, Marion county: He says, "I worked last year twenty acres in cotton on contract with Esau Page, which actually cost as follows: All work repairing fencing, picking, ginning, &c., $344.00; Commercial manures, $114.00; feed and rent of mule, $100.00; wear and tear to machinery, $35.00; hauling straw, &c., to stable, $13.00; bagging and ties for twentynine bales, $46.00; for my direction, $50.00. Total, $702.00, or $35.00 per acre. Crop. 13,277 pounds lint cotton. Contract satisfactory; has run for several years. Rents 230 of the 290 acres of his home farm for forty-four pounds lint cotton. Renters engage to make all repairs and keep up fertility of land. Estimate on 1,000 pounds seed cotton,333 pounds lint, twenty-three bushels seed.” 8. W. D. Johnson, Marion C. H.: Yield 1,200 pounds, 400 pounds lint, thirty bushels seed. In a good year 1,400 to 1,500 pounds seed cotton. N. B. The rent and home made manure, i. e., cotton seed, constitute one-half or more of profits. 9. C. S. McCall, Bennettsville, Marlboro county: Average yield 1,000 pounds, 333 pounds lint, twenty-three bushels seed. 10. Edward E, Evans, Society Hill, Darlington county: Yield 1,000 pounds, 333 pounds lint, twentyeight bushels seed. 11. Henry P. Duvall, Cheraw, Chesterfield county: Yield 1,200 pounds, 400 pounds lint, thirty bushels seed. The mean of the above estimates makes the cost of cotton 83-10 cents; not calculating the improvement of the land by culture or any of the numerous perquisites attending such employment. The average profit per acre is $7.80, deducting charges for rent and management it is $15.75. Thrift and management will also reduce and even wipe out many of the items charged as expenses. Home-made manures, consisting largely of cotton seed which is reproduced each successive year in constantly increasing quantity, is such an item. It is interesting to compare these estimates of the cost of producing cotton with those made in former times. A writer in the Carolinian, in 1848, declares that five cents a pound for cotton will not pay a profit, and gives this statement as the experience on a plantation with twenty field hands, total investment, $20,000. Transporting cotton to market at seventy-five cents per bale. Crop 120 bales of 350 pounds, 42,500 pounds lint, cost three cents per pound, not counting interest on investment. That, at seven per cent., would have made the cost six and a third cents, omitting to credit the account with all perquisites to the planter, as a home and home supplies, with increase of negro property, &c. Mr. Solon Robinson, of New York, in an extensive tour through the South, gave, in 1848, the following carefully prepared statement regarding the plantation of Col. Williams, of Society Hill, Darlington county, South Carolina : CAPITAL INVESTED. 4,200 acres land (2,700 cultivated) at $15 per acre 2,000 head of cattle old and young $ 63,000 00 89,900 00 3,720 00 2,000 00 23 carts, six wagons 500 head of hogs 60 bull-tongue plows, 60 shaving plows, 25 turning plows, 18 520 00 1,000 00 262 00 1,000 00 . $161,402 00 Three overseers, wages $900, medical attendance $317.50. Fifty sacks of salt $80.00, lime and plaster $194.00 . Outlay for gin belts, &c. . Molasses, tobacco and flour Three-eighths cent per pound freight and charges for marketing cotton. 200 00 1,579 50 274 00 100 00 80 00 170 00 2,069 00 $17,894 48 CROP. 13,509 pounds bacon for home place and factory. $15,464 00 This sum, that is products other than cotton, deducted from expenses above stated leaves then.. This was the cost of a cotton crop of 351,000 pounds lint cotton, making the cost per pound 4 7-10 cents. The cotton was sold at seven cents per pound. Omitting charges for interest and taking no account of the increasing value of the property, this gives 11 6-10 per cent. profits on the total investment. Mr. J. J. Lucas, also from Society Hill, Darlington county, reports, for 1879, that the cost of making cotton is twelve and a half cents per pound, that the value of land is ten dollars and not fifteen dollars per acre, as Mr. Williams states it, and that rents pay seven per cent. on the investment in place of the above. It will be noticed that the cost of transportation to market and charges for selling, &c., were about one-half in 1848 what they are now. Abstract of the replies of Township correspondents, arranged according to the Counties, Supervisor's Districts (Sup. Dist.) and Enumeration Districts (E. D.) of the 10th United States Census, in which they resided: HAMPTON COUNTY, (2d Sup. Dist. 10th United States Census.) Lawton Township, (E. D. 118 and 119): Northern part rolling, remainder level. Swamps on the Savannah river and other water courses, for the most part unreclaimed; one-third, a stiff mulatto upland, with clay subsoil borders the swamp; two-thirds, upland, a dark gray sandy loam, underlaid by clay at the depth of eighteen to twenty inches. Crops under good cultivation yield four hundred pounds lint cotton, twelve to twenty bushels corn, thirty bushels oats, fifteen to fifty bushels rice; peanuts, twenty-five to fifty bushels; sugar cane syrup, two hundred gallons per acre. Timber, best yellow pine, cypress, white oak, ash and poplar. Stock raising has been profitable, and might be greatly enlarged, there being abundance of Bermuda grass, cane and swamp mast. Wages of field labor, forty to fifty cents a day; one-tenth performed by whites. A large portion of the laborers rent lands, obtain supplies by giving a lien |