FLAX INDIGO COTTON HEMP. 



67 



Indigo. 



Indigo was cultivated and used by the Mexicans previous to the 

 conquest. The plant was known by them under the name of 

 Xiuhquilipitzahuac, and the particles from which the dye stuff was 

 made, as Mohuitli or Tlacohuilli. At the close of the seventeenth 

 century the production of this article had already greatly decreased. 

 The chief part of it, required for dyeing the cotton cloths which 

 are generally used for home consumption by the Indians and lower 

 classes of Mestizos, has been brought from Guatemala. It is found 

 in Yucatan, Chiapas and about Tehuantepec in the state of Oajaca, 

 and grows wild in some very warm localities in Tabasco. In this 

 last named region there is every reason to believe that it may be 

 profitably cultivated, inasmuch as the indigo plantations of San 

 Salvador, in the neighborhood of Guatemala have been known to 

 produce one million eight hundred thousand pounds of the article, 

 valued at two millions of dollars. 



The production of Wax, according to the Memoria Sobre el 

 Estado de la Agricultura y Industria, of Don Lucas Alaman in 

 1843, is gradually augmenting in the republic. Attempts have 

 also been made to cultivate Flax and Hemp. The first of which 

 has been successfully raised by Mariano Aillou in the neighbor- 

 hood of Tenancingo, and the latter, in the southern districts of the 

 state of Michoacan, where it grows even spontaneously and is 

 known under the name of guinary. The product is very large, the 

 extent of territory covered by it very great, — and the thousands 

 of pounds annually raised in that district, are made up into gar- 

 ments whose quality is highly approved throughout the republic. 



Cotton. 



In consequence of the high price of imported goods, owing to 

 restrictive tariffs as well as to the costliness of transportation a 

 number of intelligent persons began some years ago to establish 

 factories for cottons and woollens. The stimulus of domestic fac- 

 tories it was supposed would naturally increase the culture of the 

 raw materials, and, accordingly, the national industry was aided 

 from the beginning by prohibitions or excessive duties, which either 

 excluded the foreign raw material altogether, or fostered the con- 

 traband introduction of cotton twist and woollen thread. 



Cotton was among the indigenous products of Mexico at the 

 time of the conquest; and the early adventurers not only found it to 

 constitute the common vesture of th^ masses of the people, but also 



