AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 329 



our exports last year (1856) amounted to c£38,284,7C0, being one- 

 third of the value of our entire exports to all foreign countries; 

 any serious interruption, therefore, to a manufacture in which ' 

 millions of consumers are interested, would be little less than a 

 world's calamity. 



In forty years, the consumption of cotton in Great Britain has 

 increased from 88,000,000 of pounds, to 891,000,000 pounds 

 weight. 



The imports of cotton into Great Britain last year, amounted 

 to 900,000,000 pounds, of which 700,000,000 pounds weight were 

 received from the United States. 



The honorable gentleman then speaks of the slave power which 

 produces it, &c., with which this Institute does not meddle, as it 

 belongs to politicians, and not to our objects, which are those of 

 the whole of America, its agriculture, its commerce, its manufac- 

 tures and its arts. He examines the world for a cotton growing 

 soil and climate in vain to match, or even approach the production 

 of the United States. He finds that in India, the climate is 

 unfriendly to the culture of cotton. An acre of land in India 

 produces from fifty to seventy pounds weight of clean cotton- 

 while an acre of America produces four hundred pounds weight. 

 The American lands are rich and fertile, and are watered with 

 rains throughout the year. The land of India, on the contrary, 

 (except on the borders of the rivers,) is parched by a burning sun, 

 and is, during eight or nine months in the year, almost without 

 rain. 



He considers irrigation the only remedy for India. Mr. Geo. 

 Vary, who had twelve years experience there, and was late super- 

 intendent of the government cotton experiments in Sattara and 

 Sholopoor, says : " The cotton plant, as at present cultivated, is 

 an annual. The seed is sown towards the end of the monsoon. 

 The bush seldom exceeds three feet and a half high; and forty 

 pounds of clean cotton is considered a fair crop. After the cotton 

 is collected, they pull up the bushes and burn them, as they all 

 die during the hot weather for want of moisture. By irrigating 

 these bushes, they can have the same bushes for several years. 

 I have seen a bush nine years old, which produced three crops 



