96 COTTON PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



of the numerous regions where the cotton shrub is found, 

 have been grown side by side in private gardens, on planta- 

 tions, and in botanical collections. Of these, the garden in 

 Trinidad alone remains, and we are not aware that any great 

 advantage has been derived from that. This much, however, 

 we know, that the several species differ materially in appear- 

 ance, varying from four or five, to fifteen or sixteen feet high. 



There is no doubt that the plant was well known in ancient 

 times ; but at what period it was introduced into America, we 

 are not precisely informed. The Sea Island cotton is the 

 produce of a plant that seems to have been first carried to the 

 Bahamas from the island of Anquilla, (whither it is believed 

 to have been transported from Persia,) and was sent to Geor- 

 gia in 1786. But there is evidence of the existence of the 

 cotton plant in America long before there was any direct com- 

 munication between the civilized world and the two great 

 portions of this continent ; and it is a well-authenticated fact 

 that the Spaniards found cotton cloth, or calico, a common 

 article of dress among the inhabitants of Mexico, upon their 

 first invasion of that country. Calico obtained its name from 

 Calicat an insignificant town in India, where it was probably 

 first made. It was an article too expensive to be purchased 

 by the laboring classes, on its first introduction into England ; 

 and it was little imagined, in the early days of its manufac- 

 ture, how wonderfully it was destined to alter the whole face 

 of commerce and society, and become the great staple com- 

 modity of the western hemisphere. 



In China, it does not appear to have been employed to con- 

 stitute articles of dress before the thirteenth century. In 

 Spain, it is believed that the Moors employed the filaments 

 of cotton for weaving cloth in the tenth century ; but the 

 quarrels between the Mohammedans and the Christians kept 

 the rest of Europe in ignorance of its manufacture for many 



