CHAPTEE III. 
THE COTTON ZONE OP THE WORLD. 
The cotton zone of the world is an immense territory. 
Lying between the 36tli parallel of north latitude and the 
36th of south latitude, it embraces in the Western hemi- 
sphere all the States of the South, including Tennessee and 
North Carolina, Mexico, Central America, West Indies, the 
States of South America as far as the mouth of the Rio 
de la Plata; and in the Eastern hemisphere, the whole of 
Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, China, East Indies, and 
nearly all of Australia. 
The cotton zone occupies more than one-half of the 
arable land surface of the globe ; but it must not be sup- 
posed that all, or even the principal part of the land in 
this zone, is suitable for cultivation. The Great Desert of 
Africa, for instance, would make poor plantations; so would 
the sides of mountains, and so would other localities which 
are unfit by reason of an unsuitable soil 
We mean, then, by this cotton zone, a broad belt of 
land, nearly 5,000 miles wide from north to south, and 
about 18,000 miles long from east to west, where the cli- 
mate and seasons are adapted to the cultivation of cotton. 
Kow, as near the torrid zone we find intertropical 
fruits, so near this cotton zone we discover cotton growing 
