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Show 52 BASIS OF AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1790 spread rapidly through the south, the centre of production keeping steadily ahead of that of population. Still, in 1790, the total production was less than nine thousand bales. 1 It reached two hundred and ten thousand bales in the early part of the last century. Subject to annual variations, this had risen by the beginning of the civil war to nearly five million bales. During the years of conflict the quantity fell almost to zero, and the industry did not immediately recover, though the product is now twice as large as at any time before the war. The United States produces about three- fourths of the world's supply and exports about two- thirds of its crop. At times the proportion of export has been much higher, but the growth of the manufacturing industry has more than kept pace with the increase in the crop, great though that has been. .' Texas furnishes the largest amount for any one state, about one- fourth of the whole. The total yield of 1902 was valued at $ 511,000,000 for the cotton alone. The cotton- seed industry has so far advanced that in 1902 one hundred and nineteen million gallons of oil were produced, and of oil cake over a million tons. 8 The other characteristic southern crop is tobacco, indigenous and found in general use by the early discoverers. Kentucky produced in 1902 about 1 U. S. Dept. Agric, Official Exper. Stations, The Cotton- Plant Bulletin ( 1896), 33. 2 U. S. Dept. Agric, Year- Book, 190a, p. 816. |