Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/407

less than 4 oz. A single pound of thread was spun out to the length of 115 miles; but it has since been made in England so fine that a pound could be made to reach 1,026 miles. The famous muslins of Dacca, made of a staple too short to be spun by Europeans or woven by any machinery, and designated as “webs of woven wind,” are produced from cotton grown only in a district of about 40 m. in length by 3 in breadth, lying to the northeast of Calcutta. There are accounts of muslins made in Bengal so fine that a piece requires four months to make it, and is worth 500 rupees; when laid upon the grass and covered with dew, it is not discernible.—Spain was the first of European countries to adopt the cotton culture; it was introduced there as early as the 10th century by the Moors, and was about the same time extended to Sicily. The Venetians engaged in it about the 14th century; and the Turks about the same period introduced it into Roumelia and Macedonia. The earliest notice of cotton as an article of English trade is about the end of the 15th century. In the early part of the 18th century the English received it from the East and West Indies. In 1700 about 1,000,000 lbs. were consumed in Great Britain. The consumption increased to 2,200,000 lbs. in 1720, and 3,900,000 in 1764. After 1786 the increase in the consumption, in consequence of Arkwright's invention, was most extraordinary. In 1800 the amount consumed was about 51,000,000 lbs., which rose to 150,000,000 lbs. in 1820, 588,200,000 in 1850, and 1,101,191,280 in 1870.—In the new world, the manufacture of cotton cloth appears to have been well understood by the Mexicans and Peruvians long before the discovery of their countries by Europeans. Columbus found the cotton plant growing wild in Hispaniola, and later explorers recognized it as far north as the country bordering the Mishe-sepe, or Mississippi, and its tributaries. Cortes, on setting out from Trinidad on the southern coast of Cuba for his Mexican expedition, gathered it in abundance to quilt the jackets of his soldiers as a protection, after the practice of the natives, against the Indian arrows; and when on the Mexican coast, among the rich presents received by him from Montezuma were “curtains, coverlets, and robes of cotton, fine as silk, of rich and various dyes, interwoven with feather work, that rivalled the delicacy of painting.” The Mexicans also fabricated white cotton cloths for numerous uses, and even converted the material into a sort of paper. The West India islands furnished to Great Britain about the close of the last century some 40,000 bales, or three fourths of the supply of cotton at that time. The quality was the long staple. Cotton was exported from Brazil as early as 1760, but it was not till about 1825 that Brazilian cotton began to be extensively used in England. In the United States, cotton seeds, as stated in Purchas's “Pilgrims,” were first “planted as an experiment in 1621, and their plentiful coming up was, at that early day, a subject of interest in America and England.” In the province of Carolina the growth of the cotton plant is noticed in a paper of the date of 1666 preserved in Carroll's “Historical Collections of South Carolina.” In 1736 the plant was known in gardens in lat. 39° N., on the eastern shore of Maryland; and about 40 years afterward it was cultivated in the county of Cape May in New Jersey. It was, however, little known except as a garden plant until after the revolutionary war, at the commencement of which Gen. Delagall is said to have had 30 acres of the green-seed cotton under culture near Savannah. In 1748 it is stated that among the exports of Charleston, S. C., were seven bags of cotton wool, valued at £3 11s. 5d. a bag. Another small shipment was made in 1754; and in 1770 three more, amounting to 10 bales, were made to Liverpool. In 1784 eight bags shipped to England were seized, on the ground that so much cotton could not be produced in the United States. The exports of the next six years were successively 14, 6, 109, 389, 842, and (in 1790) 81 bags. In 1786 the first sea island cotton was raised on the coast of Georgia, and its exportation was commenced in 1788 by Alexander Bissel, of St. Simon's island. The seeds were obtained from the Bahamas, the plant having been introduced there from Anguilla, one of the Leeward isles. The first successful crop in the state was that of William Elliott in 1790, on Hilton Head island. The excellent quality of the staple caused it to be distinguished from other cottons in the year 1805, and enabled it to command much higher prices. In 1806 it sold for 30 cts. per lb., when other cotton was worth 22 cts. In 1816 it brought 47 cts., other cotton 27 cts. The great length of the fibre was unequalled, and the English manufacturers at first actually reduced it by cutting before spinning. The success of the crop caused many to engage in its cultivation, and some of the largest fortunes in South Carolina were thus rapidly accumulated. The extent of the region adapted to it was, however, limited, and the amount raised in 1805 was not exceeded by the crop of 1832, being about 8,000,000 lbs. The culture of the other varieties, the herbaceous and the hirsutum or shrub cotton, distinguished by their green instead of the black seed of the sea island, was rapidly extended in the last 10 years of the 18th century throughout the southern states, the product being known as the short staple or upland cotton. In 1791 the cotton crop in the United States was 2,000,000 lbs., of which three fourths was raised in South Carolina and one fourth in Georgia, The exports amounted to 189,500 lbs. In 1801, 48,000,000 lbs. were produced, and 20,000,000 lbs. exported.—Besides the United States, the chief countries for the production of cotton are the East Indies, Egypt, Brazil, the West Indies, and Guiana.