ON THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN ITALY. 431 



practical alchemy. The perseverance and industry of experimentalists are well 

 illustrated in productions like these, which seem to show us the wonderful 

 machinery which is ever at work around us, giving different forms, unlimited 

 in number, to a few elements entering into combination with each other, in 

 obedience to fixed natural laws which science has made known to us, and 

 serving to show how vast are the treasures still open to discovery, by the 

 careful and patient investigator. Besides their scientific interest, the com- 

 mercial results which will probably follow these discoveries, — due in a great 

 measure to the untiring industry of Mr. Perkins, — are most important ; for, 

 as it has lately been said, if the progress in the manufacture, and simplicity 

 in the application of them, proceeds with the same rapidity which it has 

 done since the introduction of this class of dyes, we shall produce staple 

 colours of our own, be independent of foreign countries for our supply, 

 and may even become a colour-exporting nation. 

 York. 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN ITALY. 



Cotton has been cultivated in Southern Italy from time immemorial, 

 and was probably introduced by the Saracens, in the ninth century. We 

 have historical evidence that as early as the eleventh century it formed one 

 of the principal agricultural products of Sicily and of the provinces on the 

 shores of the Adriatic and Ionian seas. G. B. della Porta, a writer of the 

 sixteenth century, states that in his time it was extensively cultivated in 

 the Puglie, " apud Appulos .... ubi copiosissime seritur." Documents of the 

 year 1050 exist at Bisceglia, Terra di Bari, by which some priests of 

 Adueno let their church tenures for the cultivation of cotton, " ad colendum 

 gossypium." In the last century the cultivation extended as far north as 

 the provinces of Sienno and Grosseto, in Tuscany. During the wars of 

 Napoleon I. and the Continental blockade, the Italian mainland supplied 

 almost the whole of Europe with cotton ; it was especially grown around 

 Naples, being generally known in commerce under the name of Castellamare 

 cotton. 



Subsequently, the sad economical condition of the Southern provinces, 

 clue to the entire absence of drainage, irrigation and road communication 

 over large tracts of country, was sufficient to cause the almost entire cessa- 

 tion of cotton cultivation in Italy, it being impossible, under such disad- 

 vantages, and with the depressed prices, to compete with America and 

 India. Henceforth it was restricted to certain localities, where the peasants 

 were accustomed to spin cotton yarn by hand for making counterpanes, 

 stockings, and common stuffs. The cultivation of cotton in these provinces 

 has since slightly extended by the introduction of spinning machinery. 

 Considering the immense national importance which it might acquire, the 



