C 109 ) 
CnAPTER VI 
TROPICAL PLANTS USED FOR INDUSTRIAL 
PURPOSES, 
CJotton— Ita ciiltEvftt5oii in the ITnited States— CSaoutchoac and Gulta- 
perclia— Mftnnf^r m which them resins are CfilJecled—Indigd — Tlie 
Britkh Lf)^'WiK>d cuttt!ra in Hoadunve— Brazil Wood— Anialt<j. 
U^*DER the Plantagenets and tlie Tudors, wool formed tlie 
chief export of England, The pastoral races that inhabited 
the British Isles, unskilled iji weaving, suffered the more 
industrioas Flemings to convert tbeir lieeces into tissnes ; 
and the dominions of the Duke of Burgnndy, enriched by 
manufactures and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture, 
became the most prosperous part of Europe, At length 
the islanders began to discover the eonrces of the wealth 
which rendered Ghent and Bruges, Ypres and Louvain, 
the marvel and envy of the mediaeval world ; and gradually 
learning to keep their wool at Lome^ in^'ited the Flemings 
to the shores of England, 
The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid of this more 
enlightened policy : our wool ceased to be sent abroad, and 
English cloth eventually became the chief of our exports, 
Bul^ like all human affairs, trade is subject to eternal 
fluctuationj new wants are constantly created, new markets 
openedj new articles introduced, and thus, almost within 
the memory of living man, tlie wool-Tuanufactory has 
ceased to be the great staple of our iudustry, and, thanks 
to the inventive genius of our Arkwrights and Cromptons, 
a vegetable fibre furnished by a pknt totally unknown to 
