The growth and importance of the industry is perhaps best realized from the fact that in 1870 there were 5,625 machines in the country, in 1905, 88,374, and now well over one hundred thousand. In 1850 men wore hand-knitted socks and flannel underwear. From 1860 to 1910 the product of the country’s knitting machines rose from $7,300,000 to $200,100,000.
Folding
Cotton yarn is used more than woolen because it spins more cheaply and is less difficult to knit.
Before concluding this part of our survey which deals with the manufacture of cotton into finished goods, we must at least enumerate some of the by-products and minor fruits of the industry.
To begin with, at the time that the cotton is ginned the seeds are sold to the manufacturers of cotton oil. Without going into detail as to the process, we have here an annual product for this country worth $384,000,000. Seed mills regin the seed before they crush it and remove the short fibres which have hitherto adhered to the seed. This regained cotton is known as linters and amounts annually to about 800,000 bales.
Being of very short staple this reginned cotton is adapted for the manufacture of felts and surgical dressings, both of which are important by-products.
The manufacture of small-wares and lace curtains is another minor branch of cotton manufacture. Here, however, domestic production is comparatively small, and the bulk of the lace used is imported. Nevertheless probably over 75,000,000 yards[3] of the lace are made annually in this country.
Gun-cotton, a highly explosive substance, is obtained by soaking cotton (usually linters) in nitric and sulphuric acids and then leaving it to dry. And again, gun-cotton dissolved in ether and alcohol yields the much used surgical adhesive known as collodion.
The stems and leaves of the cotton plant are used for fodder, the seed hulls for fertilizer, and there is in fact no part of the plant from which man has not learned to derive some useful product.
[3] This figure is only roughly approximated.