Question

Short answer question:
How did developments both outside of Texas and inside the state encourage Texas farmers to rapidly increase the amount of cotton that they grew from 1860 to 1900?

Answer 1

Between 1860 and 1900 Texans planted far more cotton because push and pull factors outside and inside the state made cotton the most profitable, easiest-to-market crop. Outside Texas: industrialization in the North and booming textile mills in Britain and Europe created huge, sustained demand and high prices for cotton; expanding national and international markets were opened by the growing railroad network and steamship trade, and Northern and foreign capital financed cotton production and marketing. Inside Texas: the end of slavery produced sharecropping and tenant systems and the crop‑lien credit system that encouraged planters and poor farmers to plant cotton as a cash crop; railroad expansion into Texas gave farmers reliable access to distant markets and inputs; agricultural implements, improved gins and packing equipment, and commercial fertilizers made planting and processing more efficient; and cheap, newly settled land provided more acreage to be put into cotton. These combined economic incentives, improved transport/processing, and labor/credit arrangements drove the rapid expansion of cotton acreage.