The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-04 00:00:00

and finer in the staple, is, to say the least, a very.
precarious crop in the cotton-growing districts of.
Salem and Kistna. It requires a large amount of
artificial irrigation, is much exposed to the attacks
of insects, and suffers greatly from changeable or
!infavourable weather—all of them wants which t.
is difficult to supply, or drawbacks which it is lrn;
possible to avoid in India. At Natal, Egyptian se
amen
has been found to succeed very well, and to prodti..ce
,
a crop valued at about 2s. per pound. Egypt, ge
seems to afferd the best seed for the whole of the
etl
Levant and Asia Minor, in which there is pra•
cally an unlimited field for cotton cultivation,
only the introduction of capital and skilled
labour. Unfortunately there has been hitherto no
diminution in the principal obstacle to their eni.
ploy ment ; the groundless jealousy entertained b!,
T the Turkish authorities of foreign enterprise an
u
foreign, ownership of property. Where licenses
have been granted by the Porte, and proper ma'
chinery has been established, as at Balukisser. aye
Kirkagetch, the produce has been doubled in a single
year. There are large districts in the Island of
Cyprus, and around Sidon,
in
which American
seed might be introduced with the greatest adveri;
tage, and where an average price of eightpence Pe
pound only would amply remunerate the grnwer'
and make it well worth his while to bring all the
available land in his vicinity under cultivation.
In Morocco there has been bat a trifling increase.
owing, as in the dominions of the Sultan, to the
want of European capitalists. What has been
grown, too, seems likely to be monopolised foe
consumption, so that comparatively little
will be available for exportation from a quarter
from whence we had been led to entertain great
expectations. Some difficulties seem to have arisen
also between the Sultan of Morocco and the Ell,r°-
pear: settlers, which led to an actual embargo betng.
placed on all cotton, and which have seriously
in
terfered with a market which distance, and the
peculiarities of the soil, would otherwise ren4ef
especially available for our purposes. It is seetisd
factory, however, to find that whereas France us
previously enjoyed something very like a monopoly
of the cotton grown upon the shores of the 11Iedle
terra
it nean, high prices are now beginning to tell'
and is finding its way in large quantities, and ,
vastly superior quality, to British ports. Crossing
the Atlantic, Pernambuco has more than doubled
its supply in the last twelve months, and is °ca..
peated to send us this year at least one hundred an
twenty thousand bales. Another favourable feature
in its case is the fact that, in place of drawing upon
us for specie, it takes a large proportion of tbef
price paid for the raw material in the shape °
manufactured articles. In Venezuela the produce
has been trebled, although the small area pr,e°
viously under crop renders the importance of tee
.
increase more relative than positive. In that on°
try, however, the want of labour must interfere
seriously, for some time to come, with any really
large increase of production. Still there is an ample
field now open, and it has been found that both
the native seed and the Government importn;
tions of New Orleans, have done well.
is quite clear, from the above reports, that the Pre.",
curing of an adequate supply for all our purpoaesltll;
merely a question of time, and that it may in ~2
end prove to be obtainable even nearer home t°,o
it has been before. Beyond the objections to tu
shortness in staple, and to the deficiencies in qualleti
of " Surat," the great distances which have to ee
traversed from the cotton distrl/2ts of Hindustan
°
to the coast, and the long vo:, be from thence td
Liverpool, must always enhance its price, al
render it undesirable as our only source of suPI,
If we can establish a market on the coasts of
Mediterranean within a week's sail of our 10:"
island we shall have materially improved oar po.s':
tion. As matters stand at present, all authoeitl,e"
are agreed that years must elapse before Ne"
Orleans can become again what it was to us, even
if it ever regains its former pre-eminence as a cottol!
port. Those who best understand the cultivation °I
the cotton plant, and the delicate operation of pick:
ing, have been scattered to the winds. A Ile"
generation will have to be trained in one of the
most difficult of all manipulative processes befer6t
the crop can again be sent to market, even whet°
has been again grown in its former perfectleu,'
Above all, the burnt child " proverbially " dreae
1l
the fire," and our merchants and manufacturers, :
they are wise, will be aware of again relying egg
elusively upon one source of supply. It is to de+
velope new channels of commerce in this respee"
that the Cotton Supply Association was originally
formed—and we trust that no rumours of peaces
ill
suggestions of any impending fall in cottons
induce those who are members of it to relax eser,
tions which have been already productive of Bub'
stantiat benefits.