154 COTTON CULTTJEE. 



terior, and the amount produced throughout the kingdom 

 increases but slowly. During the ten years, from 1843 to 

 1853, the increase was only six thousand bales, and the 

 product of the latter year was sixty-five thousand bales. 

 Four-fifths of the Brazilian crop is exported to Great 

 Britain. The first production of cotton in that country 

 was almost simultaneous with the first raised in the United 

 States. Its export to England began in 1781, and it was 

 1784, three years after, that eight bags of cotton, shipped 

 from the United States to England, were seized on the 

 ground that so much cotton could not be produced in the 

 United States. 



The growth of cotton in Brazil is not likely for many 

 years, and perhaps never, to attain any great importance. 

 Along the coast the climate is unfavorable, and the rav- 

 ages of insects are such as to make the cotton crop very 

 uncertain. In the interior provinces, the difficulties of 

 raising it are not so great ; but the sparseness of the popu- 

 lation and the slowness and the almost insuperable obstacles 

 in the way of transportation of what is produced, must 

 limit the amount grown. 



Pernambuco is the principal cotton growing province 

 of Brazil ; but between the years 1828 and 1845, the ex- 

 ports from Pernambuco declined to such an extent as to 

 make a poor showing for cotton in Brazil. In 1828, there 

 were exported a little over seventy thousand bales of one 

 hundred and sixty pounds each ; in 1845, seven years 

 after, the export was a little over twenty-six thousand 

 bales of one hundred and sixty pounds each. 



There is no authentic statement as to the precise time 

 when cotton was cultivated in the British Colonies of 

 North America, now the United States. It is probable 

 that, from the settlement of the country, a little was raised 

 in most of the southern colonies. In a pamphlet on the 

 attractions of North America, published very early in 

 1600, a year or two after Jamestown was settled, it is 



