14 
HISTOET OF COTTON. 
of 1666, preserved in Carroll's " Historical Collections of 
South Carolina." In 1736 the plant was known in gardens 
in lat. 39° N. on the eastern shore of Maryland; and about 
forty years afterwards it was cultivated in the county of 
Cape May, New Jersey. It was, however, very little known, 
except as a garden plant, until after the Revolutionary War. 
In 1748 seven bags of cotton wool were exported from 
Charleston, S. C, valued at £3 11^. 5d. a bag. 
In 1754 another small shipment was made. In 1770 
three bags were exported. In 1784 eight bags, shipped to 
England, were seized, on the ground that so mucb cotton 
could not be produced in the United States, 
The exports of the next six years were successively 
14 bags; 6; 109; 389; 842; 8L 
In 1790 England received only one bag of cotton from 
the United States in 1,000 bags imported; in 1792, 1 in 
126; in 1795,1 in 25; and in 1799, about one-ninth of 
the importation was from this country. 
From the beginning of the present century to the 
breaking out of the late civil war, there has been, with the 
exception of a few years of decline interspersed at vari- 
ous periods, a steady increase af bales from 100,000 to 
4,500,000. During the war there was, of course, a rapid 
decline, and the number of bales went down from four mill- 
ions and a half to a half million, the number of the first 
semi-decennial period of the century. 
This will be more fully exhibited in a separate chapter 
on Cotton Statistics. 
