STAPLES OF AND FOK AMERICA. 35 



field. A few American planters are there upon salaries, 

 and a few servants of the government get up experi 

 mental farms ; for every man who will try his hand at 

 cotton growing, is sure to be enrolled in parliamentary 

 blue books, and be lionized for the time being ; therefore 

 many lovers of popularity have their little to do with 

 cotton planting; and among the whole body there is not 

 one interested person, whose hopes are concentrated, and 

 whose means of livelihood is to be realized from his suc 

 cessful issue in cotton planting. It is lamentable, but it 

 is not less the fact, that people now-a-days carry on all 

 their experimental cultivations, &c., not so much for 

 the purpose of doing good, but to figure in print, and 

 appear to be a somebody. When we Jook at the volumi 

 nous reports on cotton cultivation in East India, when 

 we listen to the worthless wrangling of the Court of Di 

 rectors of the British East India Company, and the Man 

 chester Chamber of Commerce, it must be grievous to 

 find that two such bodies should waste their energies in 

 pen and ink, and high-winded speeches. Every planter 

 of indigo, &c., in East India, is at the complete mercy 

 of a boyish magistrate, or collector ; the planter, what 

 ever his position may be, is at their discretion. I can 

 say, after fourteen years in the East Indies, that the serf 

 of Russia has far more security than planters or culti 

 vators have in the British possessions in India. On the 

 other hand, instead of the Manchester Chamber of Com 

 merce or the commercial community employing active 

 and intelligent men and investing their capital to enable 

 such to make themselves a provision, they keep aloof, 

 talk and write. Latterly, i. e. 1850, the Chamber sent 

 out a commission of inquiry to ascertain the cause why 



