The most wonderful growth of the cotton-man ufacturing industry has been in the Southern United States. The availability of the raw' material, made possible largely by the agricul tural labor of the negro, and the presence of a class of the white population who, after the war, found themselves without homes or occupa tion and who it was found were teachable and tractable, and would make good factory hands, and were to he had in abundance, were the chief factors in this development ; then there were available water-power and land which could be secured cheaper than elsewhere, and at first municipal aid in the way of exemption from taxation for a term of years. The growth of the industry in the Southern States has been remarkably steady since 1880. and ample proof of its success is evidenced by the fact that more and larger mills are now being built, together with the enlargement and development of older ones.
The sources which first gave the so-called `civilized' nations their fine and beautiful fab rics of silk were China and Japan; there the silkworm flourished, labor was plentiful and cheap, and the nations [esthetic; they produced beautiful lint costly fabrics which were con sidered luxuries as far back as the nations have a history, yet these nations now produce less in value than many others, though they still produce fabrics which the more highly civilized nations can hardly equal. It is natural to ex pect that the growth of the silk industry should be greatest in those countries which can pro duce the raw material, but this is not always the case. The introduction of the silkworm into Central and Western Europe caused a remark able expansion of the manufacture of silks in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, and France. The Germans, producing practically no raw silk, how ever, have made a great success of the industry, as has the United States in recent years. Eng
land, however, with a wonderful capacity for manufacturing, having attempted the silk indus try, relying on imported silk, though fairly successful for a time, has seen it decline for the last half-century, while the cotton industry dur ing the same period has had an extraordinary de velopment. Air. Edward Stanwood. of Boston, a textile statistician. in speaking of the develop• ment of the industry of the United States, says: "Reasons corresponding to those which caused the wool manufacture to spring up in every part of the country and which concentrated the manufacture of cotton where power is cheap, where rates of transportation are low, where labor is abundant, or in the immediate vicinity of a supply of cotton, result in a still greater localization of the silk industry. Eleven twelfths of all the establishments in the country are in the five adjoining States of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New• York. Connect hmt, and Massa chusetts, and of the spindles, more than nineteen twentieths of the whole are in the mills of those: States." The most. important reason for this localization is the presence of sufficient labor of requisite skill to manufacture the raw material and produce fine and costly fabrics—a labor which would be too costly to employ in the pro duction of cotton goods except, those of the very finest quality, but which may be employed in the silk industry with profit. Yet another factor has been an encouraging Government policy, which has helped to establish the industry more firmly.
These are briefly the important features in connection with the development of the most important of the world's textile industries. See Corrox ; SILK ; WOOL AND WORSTED MANUFAC TURES; FACTORIES AND FACTORY SYSTEM; MANU FACTURES; etc., etc.