On the Manufacture of Indigo in this Counlnj. 



237 



and, without entering into minute detail of principles or rules, to give 

 the community materials for judging for itself on objects every day 

 pressed on Its notice, and affecting its destinies- If I have in any 

 degree succeeded, I shall consider my time as well spent: if I have 

 not, I hope others will make the effort, and witli better success. 



I 



f 



Art. IIL — On the Manifaciuring of Indigo in this Counti'^ij; by 



Willi 



^i.i. 



Partridge. 



The value of the indigo consumed in this country, for die year 

 1829, cannot be estimated at less than two millions of dollars. 



Of the quantity consumed, there was made in die United States 

 about two hundred thousand pounds, or one tenth part of die con- 

 sumption. 



As the consumption is rapidly increasing, from the increase of pop- 

 ulation, from the extension of manufactures already established, and 

 from the introduction of new articles of manufacture, I consider it 

 an object of national importance, that it should be better made, and 

 more extensively cultivated in Uiis country. 



I have been acquainted widi the indigo market for more than thirty 

 years, and never remember it in so depressed a state as it has been 

 for the last twelve months. The average price of the sales for llie 

 last year cannot have been much over one dollar per pound. The 

 average price of the imported has been about one dollar and fifteen 

 cents, and of that made in this country about fifty cents. To en- 

 deavor to give such instruction to the planters, as will enable diem 

 to make an article fully equal to tlie imported, is the object of diis 

 communication. 



The quantity of indigo made from an acre of the plant has been dif- 

 ferendy estimated by almost every maker from whom I have obtain- 

 ed information. Gen. Wade Hampton, who many years since made 

 the article in South Carolina, informed me that he obtained sixteen 

 pounds of fine indigo from the plant taken from a half acre, or thirty 

 two pounds per acre. Otlier estimates make the quantity much larger, 



hundred pounds to the acre. Taking the average 

 of the different estimates, it would be at least fifty pounds. It will 

 appear by this estimate, diat it would require forty tliousaud acres of 

 land to raise a supply for the present consumption ; and as the de- 

 mand is rapidly increasing, it is more than probable, that in ten years, 



two 



