514 FOURTH BULLETIN OF [1846. 



LETTER FROM HENRY T. JOHNSON, 



Offering suggestions and hints on the cultivation, manufacture, and 

 consumption of various articles the similar growth of America and 

 India, and of others which might be introduced into the United 

 States with a prospect of success. 



Hong Kono, China, April 18, 1846. 



Sir : Knowing the interest the National Institute, of which you are so active 

 an officer, takes in whatever concerns liio development of the resources of our com- 

 mon country, I am induced to offer you a few suggestions and hints on the cultiva- 

 tion, manufacture, and consumption of various articles the similar growth of 

 America and India, and of others which might be introduced with a prospect of 

 good success. They are made from personal observations and inquiries at the 

 different places mentioned. 



Cotton. — This product is cultivated throughout the vast regions of the east, be. 

 tween the latitudes of 30° south and north of the line, but nowhere is the quality 

 equal to our own. The principal part which is grown comes from the Presidencies 

 of Madras and Bombay, under the East India Company's government. It is also 

 now attempting in Ceylon, but it will fail if it is attempted to be grown largely. 

 The preparation is exceedingly careless and negligent, the quality of short staple, 

 and very inferior. It is brought from the districts of Tinaivilly and Southeast 

 India, in Madras, andTutecoreen, Cochin, Guzerat, Surat, and other provinces of 

 the Bombay gOTernment. It is always repicked and packed in those two cities, 

 under the inspection of the native and European merchants, and pressed into bales 

 containing not less than three hundred pounds by powerful screw presses, worked 

 by manual labor, sometiiing on the principle of working a capstan on board ship, 

 by capstan bars . Its principal market is Cliina, where, on account of old preju. 

 dices, and its short, silky, tough fibre, it is preferred to American. The shipments 

 to China rarely excecl two hundred and fifty thousand bales a year, and are falling 

 off on account of the low price that manufactured cottons and yarns can be put 

 down here from England and .\merica. The consumption in China of manufac- 

 tured cottons of various kinds, foreign and domestic, can be safely stated at fifty 

 cents per annum for, each individual of a population of three hundrad and fifty mil- 

 lions. The consequence of this large consumption is extensive importations from 

 America and England, cliiefly confined to stout fabrics and yarns undyod. They 

 are thoroughly acquainted with the art of dyeing in all its branches. 



The Chinese, from remote times, have used cotton for various other purposes be- 

 sides clothing . Tlieir coverlets, answering the purpose of blankets, arc used, as I 

 understand, throughout the nation, north and south, in conjunction with woollen 

 blankets. They are made by carding thr- cotton in layers, something or rather in 

 the precise form of what we call "cotton batting" in the United States, and cov- 

 ered with calico ticking, quilted as we do at home. This, and the making it into 

 mattresses and pillows, and also stuHiug into clothes, which are quilted in the same 

 way as their coverlets, makes a large consumption throughout the country. A 

 Chinese in the southern provinces uses very little wool in winter, preferring silks 

 and these stuffed cotton jackets and cloaks to any thing else. They likewise use 

 it in large quantities, in conjunction with bamboo, for making the finest qualities 

 of their paper. Those facts arc well worthy the attention of our cotton planters. 



There is a large consumption of nativo-grown cotton in Java and the other 

 Dutch possessions of the Eastern Archipelago, as there is also in the Spanish 

 islands of Luconia and Mindinao. The Malays of tliese islands are very ingeni- 

 ous in the manufacture of their cotton fabrics, and make nearly enough to supply 

 the demands of their several countries. They arc tolerably acquainted with the art 

 of dyeing, and their dyes stand welt. If the Dutch and Spanish Governments 

 were not so monopolizing in their policy, there would he, doubtless, a much larger 

 consumption of American y.irns and cotton fibrics in these vast continental regions 

 of the cast. It is a singular fact, not generally known, however, that Javanese 

 and Bugese made cotton fabrics meet in the Singapore and Ponang markets ia 

 large competition with English and American articles of the same nature. 



The people of India will never bo able to compete to any extent with the United 



