CONSUMPTION OF COTTON. 
145 
The importance of this product to the people who there 
cultivate and consume it is unquestionably great. In fact, 
we cannot comprehend how what appear to be their 
absolute wants could be gratified without it. While it 
supplies their own requirements, however, in their present 
condition, it makes but little impression upon the general 
commerce of mankind. In this respect, the product of the 
United States, where its extended culture does not date a 
century back, is of the first importance, though the experi- 
ments of the English in British India were commenced a 
century earlier, and though the history of the culture of 
the plant in Asiatic countries runs through thousands of 
years. No branch of industry probably ever rose to such 
magnitude in so brief a time. Producing a very large 
annual supply above the actual wants of the country, and 
of a material superior in quality to the yield of any other 
land, the United States possesses by virtue of this crop an- 
interest in the commerce of the world, which could not be' 
secured by means of a product less peculiar in its nature, 
or less intimately connected with the social condition of 
civilized Europe. This cotton chain not only binds one 
section of our land to the other, but unites England to ua 
" With links more durable than links of steel." 
English and American fabrics made from our cotton are- 
known over the whole globe, and in the markets of China 
and India take precedence of the products of the indigenous 
staple, in some fabrics, not only because they are better,, 
but because they can be purchased even there at lower 
prices. Thus, this improved product of the soil in America, 
aided by the inventions of Arkwright, Watt, and Whitney, 
is even now more powerful than armies in securing the 
advancement of civilization and enlightened liberty. Their 
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