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sells it at 4 roupees the quintal, or at 26 centimes the kilogramme, which is nearly the third of the value of that commodity in the Havannah market. Although the cultivation of the sugar cane is spreading with astonishing rapidity in Bengal, the total produce is still much less than that of Mexico. Mr. Bockford supposes the produce of Jamaica to be the quadruple of that of Bengal.

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Cotton is one of those plants of which the cultivation was as antient among the Aztec tribes, as that of the pite, the maize, and the quinoa. There is some of the finest quality on the western coast, from Acapulco to Colima, and at the port of Guautlan, particularly to the south of the Volcan de Jorullo, between the villages of Petatlan, Teipa, and Atoyaque. As they are yet unacquainted with machines for separating the cotton from the seed, the price of carriage is a great obstacle in the way of this branch of Mexican agriculture. An arroba of cotton (Algodon con peppa) which sells for 8 francs at Teipa, costs 15 at Valladolid, on account of the mule carriage. That part of the eastern coast extending from the mouths of the rivers Guasacualco and d'Alvarado, to Panuco, might supply the commerce of Vera Cruz with an enormous quantity of cotton; but the coast is almost uninhabited, and the want of hands occasions a dearth of provisions,

unfavourable to every agricultural establishment. New Spain supplies Europe annually with only 25,000 arrobas, or 312,000 kilogrammes of cotton. This quantity though in itself very inconsiderable, is however six times greater than that exported by the United States, of their own growth in 1791, according to the information which I owe to the kindness of M. Gallatin, Finance Minister at Washington. But the rapidity of the increase of industry, among a free people wisely governed, is so great, that according to a note furnished me by the same statesman, the United States exported,

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Home Cotton.

Foreign Cotton.

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From these data of M. Gallatin, it follows that the produce of cotton has become 377 times greater in twelve years. When we consider the physical positions of the United States and Mexico, we can hardly entertain a doubt that these two countries will one day be enabled to produce all the cotton employed in the manufactures of Europe. The enlightened merchants who compose the chamber of coinmerce of Paris, have asserted in a memoir

*688,584 lb. avoird. Trans.

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printed a few years ago, that the total importation of cotton into Europe, amounts to 30 millions of kilogrammes.* I am inclined to believe that this estimate is much below the truth; for the United States alone have exported annually, more than 22 millions of kilogrammes of cotton †, amounting in value to 7.920.000 dollars or nearly 40 millions of livres tournois.

Flax and hemp may be advantageously cultivated wherever the climate does not admit of the cultivation of cotton, as in the provincias internas, and even in the equinoctial region or table land, where the mean temperature is under 14 degrees of the centigrade thermometer. ‡ The Abbe Clavigero advances that flax is to be found wild in the intendancy of Valladolid and in New Mexico, but I very much question whether the assertion is founded on the accurate observation of any botanical traveller. However it is certain that neither flax nor hemp have to this day been cultivated in Mexico. Spain has had a few enlightened ministers who wished to favour these two branches of colonial industry; but their favour was nothing more than temporary. The council of the Indies, whose influence is durable like that of every body in which

*62,100,000 lb. avoird. Trans.

† 48,558,000 lb. avoird.

57° of Fahrenh.

Trans.

Trans.

the same principles are perpetuated, have ever wished the mother country to oppose the cultiva tion of flax, the vine, the olive, and the mulberry. Unenlightened as to its true interests, the government has always preferred seeing the Mexican people clothed with cotton purchased at Manilla and Canton, or imported at Cadiz by English vessels, to the production of the manufactures of New Spain. It is to be hoped that the mountainous part of Sonora, the intendancy of Durango and New Mexico, will one day rival Galicia and the Asturias in the production of flax. As to hemp, it would be of importance not to introduce into Mexico the European species, but that which is cultivated in China (cannabis indica), of which the stalk grows to the height of five or six metres.* We have every reason to presume, however, that the cultivation of flax and hemp will spread with great difficulty in that region of Mexico abounding with cotton. The steeping requires more care and labour than the separation of cotton from the seed; and in a country where there are few hands, and much laziness, the preference is naturally given to a cultivation of which the produce is much more promptly and easily managed.

The cultivation of coffee in the Island of Cuba,

* 16 or 19 feet. Trans.

*

*

and the Spanish colonies on the continent, commenced only since the destruction of the plantations of Saint Domingo.* In 1804 the Island of Cuba produced already 12,000, and the province of Caracas nearly 5,000 quintals. New Spain possesses sugar plantations in greater number, and more considerable than Terra Firma possesses; but the production of coffee amounts yet to nothing, though it can hardly be doubted that this species of cultivation would succeed perfectly well in the temperate regions, particularly at the elevation of the towns of Xalapa and Chilpansingo. The use of coffee is still so rare in Mexico, that the whole country does not consume annually more than four or five hundred quintals; while the consumption of France, where the population is scarcely five times

*The French part of St. Domingo produced in 1783 only 445,734 quintals of coffee; but five years afterwards it produced 762,865. And yet the price in 1783 was 50 francs_the_quintal, and 94 francs in 1788; which proves how much the use of coffee has been spreading in Europe notwithstanding the advanced price. Yemen furnishes annually according to Raynal 130,000, and according to Mr. Page 150,000 quintals, which are almost all exported to Turkey, Persia, and India. The Isles of France and Bourbon yield 45,000 quintals. It appears to me, from what information I have been able to procure, that all Europe actually consumes annually, nearly 53 millions of kilogrammes of coffee (116,971,000 lbs. avoird. Trans.) The coffee-tree yields in a good soil one kilogramme of coffee, and 960 of them may be planted on a hectare of ground.

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