The Sun.
London, England, 1866-08-27 00:00:00

MISCELLANEOUS AMERICAN NEWS.

Dr. Forbes, an Indian officer, of great experience
in the cotton cultivation of India, was despatched
by the India Council on a tour through the Southern
States to report on the probable supply of cotton
from that quarter. He proceeded through Virginia
into the Carolinas, North and South, throng',
Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,
and Tennessee. He reported unfavourably of every
State. In North Carolina little had been sown ; in
South Carolina he estimates the sowing at a third
of the usual quantity, but care had there been shown
in the cultivation, and puts the two States at 100,000
bales. In Georgia the condition was much worse,
accounted for by damaged seed, and scarcity of
labour--quantity, 150,000 bales. Alabama seemed
better, though large districts had been destroyed by
floods, and his estimate of the crop was under
200,000 bales. Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas,
and Tennessee were completely desolated by the
war. Every establishment for hundreds of miles
along the river had been destroyed, and these four
States, which formerly raised 2,600,000 bales, he
thinks will now give but 550,000. His most favour-
able view is that the entire crops, including Texas,
will yield no more than 1,200,000 bales. He is aware
that more favourable accounts have been circulated,
but he states that changes have since occurred, and
that the planters backed their applications for ad-
vances from the North by putting the best aspect
they could on their growing crops. It is generally
admitted, he says, that not more than half the num-
ber of negroes are now employed in the cotton fields,
and that the labour of each man under freedom has
not been two-thirds of the value of his work before
the war.

The above Report of the Cotton Commissioner of
the Indian Government at once drew forth a reply
from Charles M. Todd, of the eminent firm of
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rate estimates of the growing crops of cotton. The
main reason of this is that cotton has become the
great medium of speculation, and reports are nearly
always coloured by the interest of the reporter. Dr.
Forbes was employed by a Government whose
earnest wish it is to make the country they repre-
sent the chief mart for this staple. Now that the
crops are about to come into the market, the object
of the planters is to keep up the price by showing a
large deficiency in the growth. Mr. Todd speaks
with contempt of the official estimates put forth,
of the ignorance and carelessness of the clerks em-
ployed, and of the delight with which those who
have a direct interest in the deception cram the
Government Gatherer of Facts. "Now," continues
our authority, " having more :recently than Dr.
Forbes travelled on a zig-zag course from Texas
through the heart of the Cotton States, I, too,
ought to know something of the condition and pro-
spects of the present growing crop in America, and
I unhesitatingly allege that Dr. Forbes has been as
egregiously crammed as either Mr. M'Culloch or
the Allahabad Board of Revenue were about the
supplies of last year ; and I warn the cotton trade
that if they act upon any such estimates as those
he has reported to the Indian Government they will
court a repetition of the disappointment of last sea-