AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 235 



Parallel with the mountain chains are high grounds often "wa- 

 tered by streams. No great rivers. 



The climate of Algeria is healthy. Uncultivated lands and 

 swamjjs, and marshes, cause the principal maladies of the Euro- 

 peans here. 



The crops of the country are as rich as they are various — Eu- 

 ropean and tropical plants flourishing side by side. Soon will 

 these make their appearance in Paris to the exclusion of all other 

 foreign products, thus delivering us from the payment of an erro- 

 neous tribute to foreigners. With the first rains in November, 

 the hills and plains become covered with the best grasses for for- 

 age, and feed numerous flocks. Notwithstanding the diminution 

 of stock by the long war, the price of butcher's meat in Algiers 

 has never been above twenty-five centimes — the half kilogramme — 

 about ten cents a pound. We are beginning to have an important 

 trade wuth the Arabs in Avool and raw skins, for which we pay 

 foreigners sixty millions of francs per annum. 



As to grain we can only say that this country was named the 

 Granary of Rome anciently ; and its ability remains. The olive 

 becomes a large tree here; mulberry also; orange not excelled by 

 any; citron, pomegranate, almond, fig, grape, extraordinary vigor. 

 Forests covering 800,000 hectares, (about two million acres.) 

 Tobacco, cotton, cochineal and madder, grow here admirably. 



It is already demonstrated that Algerian cotton can successfully 

 compete with those of Egypt and the United States, and give us 

 a supply for which we now pay those foreigners 114 millions of 

 francs. 



The Georgia long staple, Sea Island, Nankin, Louisiana white, 

 are most profitable and are introduced. 



Around Algiers, in a semi-circle, extends the Metidja — a plain 

 of about ninety miles radius. The Arabs call it so — the mother 

 of the jwor. Their song calls it enemy of hunger — the blessed of 

 God, for its fertility, &c. But it is no garden — but it is the Em- 

 pire of Fever. 



COTTON. 



Report of A. De Saint- Arnaud, Ministre, Secretaire d'Etat, an 

 department de la guerre, Sire ! to the Emperor of France, Oct. 

 1853. 



In conformity to the orders of your Majesty to submit to you 

 propositions with the view of an energetic development of the 

 growth of cotton in Algeria. But I Ijelieve it to bo indispensable 



