INDIGO. 131 



are dependent for their prosperity ; an article all know 

 can be cultivated here successfully ; and yet there is not 

 one to ask the reason why it is not now cultivated. Yet 

 hardly a newspaper can be taken up, but there is a puny 

 scheme advanced for the relief of the cotton planter. 

 The gossip all are content with is, " Our fathers culti- 

 vated the indigo eighty years ago. The British Govern- 

 ment, to whom we were then colonies, gave us a shilling 

 a pound bounty for producing it. Our fathers could 

 make out but a poor pittance on it, and, therefore, it was 

 abandoned for cotton, for which we got one dollar to one 

 dollar fifty cents a pound." Well, the day is gone by 

 when cotton would realize that price, and now the 

 planter would be but too glad to realize one-half former 

 prices. Therefore a great, very great change has come 

 over the days of the cotton planter ; it was but this very 

 year when it was the merest chance saved all concerned 

 in cotton from a general bankruptcy. 



On the other hand, what has been the course of indigo 

 cultivation and trade ? The export from the United 

 States some 60 years ago was some 134,000 Ibs. only, and 

 sold for a price of 2s. 6d., or 62 cents per Ib. There is 

 now an export of indigo from East India of 13,000,000 Ibs. 

 which is sold on the spot (Calcutta) for a price, the 

 lowest years, of 100 to 140 cents per Ib., and in the 

 highest years 200 cents per Ib., and the lowest descrip- 

 tion 60 cents per Ib. Some of it has sold as high as 

 $2 45 per Ib. Such are the changes that have taken 

 place in the two articles ; one, cotton, has sunk to the 

 lowest rate it can safely be produced for the other 

 has risen to a price which gives to the planter in a 

 single year a fortune. 



