Page:Mexico (1829) Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/93

MEXICO. 61 Durango, from whence the cotton-spinners of Zacjitecas, SaltiUo, and San Luis, are supplied with raw material for their Tapalos (shawls), and other domestic manufactures. The price of cotton on the Table-land has been, hitherto, very high, from the expense of carriage; for, until very lately, a cotton gin (simple as the invention is) w^as unknown in any part of the country, and the cotton was sent from the place where it was grown, to the nearest manufacturing dis- trict, without being even separated from the seeds, much less cleaned, or pressed, or submitted to any of those processes by which the bulk is usually reduced. But this state of things cannot last ; and where the remedy is so easy, and the ad- vantages so great, it is impossible that public attention should not, speedily, be turned to an object of so much interest, not only to Mexico, but to all the manufacturing countries of the Old World. Twenty-five thousand Arrobas of cotton is the utmost that has yet been exported from Veracruz in the year ; but the supply must increase with the demand, since no great exertion or capital are required to produce it. In Texas, Austin's colony already makes large remittances of cotton to New Orleans; and I doubt not that this branch of agricul- ture will soon be every where duly appreciated. In the United States, the production of cotton increased, (according to Humboldt,) in six years, (from 1797 to 1803,) in the ratio of three hundred and seventy-seven to one. Were it possible to communicate a very small portion of similar activity to Mexico, the effect upon her external trade would be considerable ; for, in 1824, the value of the cotton exported from the United States, amounted to 21,947,404 dollars, (vide Mellish's United States.) One-tenth, or even one-twentieth part of this would form no unimportant item in the exports of a country, which, at present, is forced to cover the amount of its importations, almost entirely with cochineal and bullion.