chanical aids.

Now we turn to the recent development of the Southern States. Never has
an industry grown faster than that of the two Carolinas, Georgia and
Alabama. Some of the earliest experiments with the machine industry were
conducted in South Carolina, but from that time till the end of the 19th
century nobody imagined the possibility of a great Southern expansion.
In 1880 the South contained less than half a million spindles--i.e.
about as many as Hyde, Middleton or Chorley, and one-twenty-third of the
numbers in Oldham. Twenty years later they had increased twelvefold and
the Southern States, in respect of the number of spindles, had taken
precedence of Bolton. To-day probably about eight and a half millions
might be counted. In addition there are some two hundred thousand looms,
or nearly as many as in the three leading cotton-weaving towns of
England--Burnley, Blackburn and Preston. The rapid oncoming of the South
may also be traced by its consumption of cotton--which as an index,
however, is not perfect. This on an annual average was, in thousand
bales, 164, 269, 453, 717 and 1233 in each of the periods 1876-1880,
1881-1885, 1886-1889, 1891-1895 and 1895-1900 successively. The
consumption since then, as compared with that of the Northern States,
Great Britain and the European continent, has been as follows. It must
be remembered that the consumption per spindle varies greatly from place
to place.

_Consumption of Cotton in Thousand Bales of about 500 lb. each._

+-----------+----------+----------+---------+----------+---------+
| | Southern | Northern | Total | Great | |
| | States. | States. | United | Britain. | Europe. |
| | | | States. | | |
+-----------+----------+----------+---------+----------+---------+
| 1900-1901 | 1583 | 1963 | 3546 | 3269 | 4576 |
| 1901-1902 | 2017 | 2066 | 4083 | 3253 | 4836 |
| 1902-1903 | 1958 | 1866 | 3824 | 3185 | 5148 |
| 1903-1904 | 1889 | 2046 | 3935 | 3017 | 5148 |
| 1904-1905 | 2270 | 2292 | 4562 | 3620 | 5148 |
+-----------+----------+----------+---------+----------+---------+

The densest distribution of mills in the South is along the line of the
Southern railroad, in the district known as the Piedmont. Of this group
Charlotte in North Carolina is the natural centre: rough