On the Manufacture of Indigo in this Country. 237 



and, without entering into minute detail of principles or rules, to give 

 the community materials for judging for itself on objects every day 

 pressed on its notice, and affecting its destinies. If I have in any 

 degree succeeded, I shall consider my time as well spent: if I have 

 not, I hope others will make the effort, and with better success. 



Art. III. — On the Manufacturing of Indigo in this Country; by 

 William Partridge. 



The value of the indigo consumed in this country, for the year 

 1829, cannot be estimated at less than two milhons of dollars. 



Of the quantity consumed, there was made in the United States 

 about two hundred thousand pounds, or one tenth part of the con- 

 sumption. 



As the consumption is rapidly increasing, from the increase of pop- 

 ulation, from the extension of manufactures already established, and 

 from the introduction of new articles of manufacture, I consider it 

 an object of national importance, that it should be better made, and 

 more extensively cultivated in this country. 



I have been acquainted with the indigo market for more than thirty 

 years, and never remember it in so depressed a state as it has been 

 for the last twelve months. The average price of the sales for the 

 last year cannot have been much over one dollar per pound. The 

 average price of the imported has been about one dollar and fifteen 

 cents, and of that m.ade in this country about fifty cents. To en- 

 deavor to give such instruction to the planters, as will enable them 

 to make an article fully equal to the imported, is the object of this 

 communication. 



The quantity of indigo made from an acre of the plant has been dif^ 

 ferently estimated by almost every maker from whom I have obtain- 

 ed information. Gen. Wade Hampton, who many years since made 

 the article in South Carolina, informed me that he obtained sixteen 

 pounds of fine indigo from the plant taken from a half acre, or thirty 

 two pounds per acre. Other estimates make the quantity much larger, 

 some nearly two hundred pounds to the acre. Taking the average 

 of the different estimates, it would be at least fifty pounds. It will 

 appear by this estimate, that it would require forty thousand acres of 

 land to raise a supply for the present consumption ; and as the de- 

 mand is rapidly increasing, it is more than probable, thai in ten years, 



