82 COTTON CULTIVATION IN ITALY. 



2. The manufacture of essential oils, certain colours, sea salt, sugars, &c. 



3. Cooling the wort of beers, and by consequence improving the make 



of beer, especially in warm countries. 



4. Concentration of alcohols, spirits, and wines, and the improvement of 



wines in middling years, so as to admit of their keeping when 



shipped, &c. 

 M. Lespine adds to his machine a particular method of action of 

 extreme simplicity of detail, by which blocks of ice may be formed of 

 considerable weight with the smallest possible volume, thus rendering 

 the preservation and transport of the ice more easy. 



COTTON CULTIVATION IN ITALY. 



Of all countries to which we can turn our attention for an immediate 

 supply of cotton, none offers better prospects of success than Italy, and 

 we hope that it will be one of the grand results of the International 

 Exhibition to establish this fact. The Italian cotton attracted till 

 lately so little notice that its bare existence was scarcely known out of 

 the very districts where it is cultivated, although it is one of the most 

 ancient agricultural products of the country, whose introduction is lost 

 in the mist of ages. 



The depressing political condition of the Southern provinces of 

 Italy, where cotton is grown, had a more prejudical effect on this cul- 

 tivation than the competition of the cheap American cotton. 



It would seem as if Providence, to alleviate the fearful distress from 

 which Europe suffers, on account of the failure of the usual supply of 

 cotton, had now restored liberty and independence to Italy, in order to 

 open a new and extensive cotton field. 



There are in Italy iipwards of 1,500,000 hectares of land which 

 might easily be devoted to this cultivation. An hectare of land pro- 

 duces in Italy from 250 to 600 kilogrammes of cotton. 



In the province of Principato Citeriore even 700 kilogrammes per 

 hectare are often gathered. By good farming, it would be easy to get 

 an average crop of 400 kilogrammes. Supposing, then, that at some 

 future time, half this land should be alternately cultivated with cotton, 

 we should have a produce of 300,000 tons, or 1,500,000 bales of cotton, 

 equal to the quantity imported into England from the United States, and 

 half of the total produce of that country. Our conviction is that, if we 

 develop properly the favourable elements we have at our disposal, Italy, 

 as a cotton-producing country, may take the same position with regard 

 to England as that occupied for the last half century by the United 

 States. 



The greater part of the land in Italy that may be cultivated with 



