VEGETABLES. 



235 



severe than at a distance in the country, cotton might 

 become an object with the people of both New Jer- 

 sey and Delaware. The quantity of cotton exported 

 from the United States in 1804, was 32,000,000 



The forest trees, shrubs and plants of the United 

 States, whether for the purposes of the ship or house 

 carpenter, dyer, or medicine, may well hold a com- 

 parison with the vegetable productions of any quar- 

 ter of the globe. We owe to Mr. Jefferson the first 

 attempt to disprove the absurd and degrading idea, 

 that nature had acted with a contracted hand in th^ 

 formation of the vegetables and animals of America, 

 and as this subject cannot but be interesting to every 

 American, a few remarks shall be offered upon 

 it, on the present occasion. These ought to have the 

 more weight, because they are the result of observa- 

 tions made by an enlightened foreigner, whose pre- 

 judices would naturally incline him to the adoption of 

 the opinion of his countryman Buffon ; but his own 

 judgment was convinced upon an investigation of the 

 subject, that the opinion was not only ill-founded, but 

 that as far as respects France, the superiority was 

 on the side of the United States. A conviction of 

 this truth has so forcibly impressed the minds of the 

 French cecononjists, that a representation was made 

 on the subject to the present government, and the 

 younger Michaux was appointed for the express 

 purpose of sending over tliose kinds of our trees, which 

 would be deemed an acquisition to the country ; and 

 he has been engaged in this patriotic business for the 

 four last years. • 



According to a memoir by M. Thouin, inserted in 

 the transactions of tiie Royal Agricultural Society of 



