28 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



all compete with that of foreign growth, as regarded 

 either price or quality. 



The part of Italy where the cultivation of cotton 

 was most successful was the kingdom of Naples, 

 particularly in that fine plain which extends between 

 Mount Vesuvius, the sea, and the Tifate mountains 

 by Castellamare. Here a new and important trade 

 was created, and carried on successfully as long as 

 the continental system was in force, chiefly by French 

 and Swiss merchants, who had establishments for 

 the purpose at the neighbouring towns of La Torre 

 dell'Annunziata and La Torre del Greco. These 

 establishments closed with the coercive system that 

 had produced them, and generally to the ruin of 

 those who had largely engaged in them. Some 

 small quantities of cotton are still produced there, 

 but of late years it has only been used in the very 

 limited manufactories of the Neapolitan kingdom, 

 and not exported. 



An eminent spinner of Manchester, in the year 

 1824, imported a small quantity of this Neapolitan 

 cotton by way of experiment. The defect, as com- 

 pared with the American cotton, was the shortness 

 of its fibres. During the eruption of Vesuvius in 

 1822, some of these cotton grounds suffered much, 

 from being covered to the depth of twelve or fifteen 

 inches, by a dry, impalpable powder ejected by the 

 volcano. 



The Neapolitan cotton was known in commerce by 

 the name of cotton of Castellamare. The agriculturists 

 of the kingdom had also begun to cultivate cotton 

 in some districts of Apulia, under very favourable 

 circumstances of soil and climate, but had made no 

 great progress when the system of Bonaparte fell. 

 In 1824 all these Apulian cotton grounds bore 

 wheat and Indian corn. 



About the commencement of the present century 



