SKETCH OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 79 



in 1793.' This was the first successful device for separating the 

 seed from the short-staple or upland cotton. This is the kind of 

 cotton from which the great bulk of the cotton fabrics of the world 

 are manufactured, and the saw gin made its production profitable 

 in this country where labor was scarce and land abundant. 



Effect on slavery. One of the unpleasant results of this rise 

 of the cotton industry, however, was to give slavery a new lease 

 of life. It was already growing unpopular, even in the South ; 

 but 1 he profit of growing cotton with slave labor was so great as 

 to overcome, in the minds of a great many people, whatever 

 moral objections they had to slavery as an institution. The pro- 

 hibition, in 1808, of further importation of slaves kept the supply 

 of this kind of property down to that furnished by its natural 

 increase. The rapid increase in the demand for slaves on the 

 cotton plantations, together with this limitation of supply, com- 

 bined to make them a very valuable form of property. 



It has been a common belief that slavery was a means of devel- 

 oping the agriculture of the South, even though it was morally 

 wrong. This belief seems to rest upon some such argument as 

 this : There were not many white farm laborers or small white 

 farmers in the far South to do the work of cotton growing. 

 Therefore if it had not been for the negro slaves, there would 

 have been no one to do the work. This argument, however, over- 

 looks the probability that it was negro slavery which kept white 

 farm laborers and small white farmers out of the South. An im- 

 mense tide of European immigration began to pour into the 

 country early in the nineteenth century, but it sought the free 

 states almost exclusively. There is no reason, except that fur- 

 nished by slavery, why a part of these immigrants should not 

 have sought the fertile lands and favorable climate of the South. 

 But the presence of negro slavery was a sufficient reason. Free 

 whke laborers have generally avoided, as they would the plague, 

 evevy community where they have had to compete with slave 



