COTTON CULTURE. 149 



sicians have found the tea of its root, or a decoction of it, 

 reduced to a syrup, a valuable antiperiodic. It counter- 

 acts in the system the poison of those rich bottoms and 

 wide alluvial savannahs where the plant flourishes and at- 

 tains its greatest perfection. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE PAST AND THE FUTURE OF COTTON; ITS HISTORY 

 AND STATISTICS. 



As a power in the world, as a prominent feature and 

 main element of civilization, cotton is a child of the nine- 

 teenth century. When men who are now old were chil- 

 dren, cotton and goods made from it were spoken of 

 something as we now speak of Japanese porcelain, or 

 mantles from Afghanistan, as of articles rare and foreign. 



In this country, a little was raised by almost every 

 thrifty farmer for domestic consumption. The seeds were 

 separated from the lint by hand, at the rate of about a 

 pound in a day, and the staple was spun and mainly used 

 for knitting into stockings. 



There are neither in Homer, the Hebrew Scriptures, or 

 other early writings, any allusions to garments made of 

 cotton. The skill of the early nations in the manufacture 

 of fine linen and in the weaving of wool is so frequently 

 alluded to, that if there had been any such thing as cotton 

 cloth known in the times of Homer and Solomon, there 

 must have been reference to them. Some four hundred 

 and fifty years before Christ, Herodotus, in whose writings 

 almost everything that was known in the ancient world is 

 described, refers to cotton very distinctly, and describes it 

 as a wool-bearing tree in India, " which has for its fruit," 



