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, &quot; 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.&quot; 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. 



