4 COTTON 



tree become extinct to-morrow, and other trees 

 will take its place and our building go on as before. 

 Even if corn or wheat or rice should perish from 

 the earth, we could grow enough of the other crop, 

 supplemented by rice, oats, barley, rye, peas, 

 beans, etc., to feed both man and beast with com- 

 fort. But there is no substitute for cotton that can 

 be cultivated on a large scale; no substitute, animal 

 or vegetable product, with which civilization's pres- 

 ent demand for clothing could be supplied. 



Nor is there any plant with a history more mar- 

 velous or more romantic more suggestive of the 

 legend and mythology of its Oriental home where 

 it first began to serve mankind. If Frank Norris 

 had lived in the South instead of California, what 

 an Epic of the Cotton he might have given us- 

 what a story of Cotton, responding only to the 

 warmth of a Southern sun, and yielding a richer 

 fleece than ever Jason dreamed of; Cotton, whose 

 influence did most to bring us an alien race from 

 Africa, and then did most to perpetuate in Ameri- 

 ca the institution of human slavery; Cotton, on 

 which a "Dixie Land, the Land of Cotton," once 

 built its hopes while it waged one of the greatest 

 wars of modern times; Cotton, which helped the 

 vanquished people to their feet again, and now 

 bids fair to restore them to a proud position in 

 wealth and industry! 



THE BASIS OF THE WORLDS DOMINANT INDUSTRY 



It is probably not too much to say that cotton is 

 now the basis of the dominant industry of the 

 globe. In their primary forms the iron and s^el 

 products of the world represent a value of onljA 



