CAOUTCHOUC TllEES (INDIANS INCISING THEM). 



CHAPTEE XVI. 



TROPICAL PLANTS USED FOR INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES. 



Cotton — Its Cultivation in the United States — Caoutchouc and Gutta Percha — 

 Manner in which these resins are collected — Indigo — The British Logwood cut- 

 ters in Honduras — Brazil Wood — Arnatto. 



UNDER the Plantagenets and the Tudors, wool formed the 

 chief export of England. The pastoral races that in- 

 habited the British Isles, unskilled in weaving, suffered the 

 more industrious Flemings to convert their fleeces into tissues ; 

 and the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, enriched by manu- 

 factures and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture, became 

 the most prosperous part of Europe. At length the islanders 

 began to discover the sources of the wealth which rendered 

 Ghent and Bruges, Ypres and Louvain, the marvel and envy of 

 the mediaeval world ; and gradually learning to keep their wool 

 at home, invited the Flemings to the shores of England.- 



The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid of this more 

 enlightened policy: our wool ceased to be sent abroad, and 

 English cloth eventually became the chief of our exports. But, 

 like all human affairs, trade is subject to eternal fluctuation, new 

 wants are constantly created, new markets opened, new articles 

 introduced, and thus, almost within the memory of living man, 

 the wool-manufactory has ceased to be the great staple of our 



