American telegraph. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1851-1851, 1851-08-05
AMERICAN TELEGRAPH
~ AsHINGTON
The Cotton Plant.

on this subject on Friday last, which we here
purpose continuing.
There are certain laws of nature palpable to
the discernment of common sense. The most
useful substances distributed through the vege-
table kingdom display their most important
qualities at once. Invention has in respect to
some Of them been slow in evoking their uses;
but in the lapse of many centuries these uses,
we may be assured, have been developed for
the most part; and it chiefly remains in refe-
renee to them to dlfuse the knowledge which
has been acquired. There is no longer any
need of a train of experiments and observations
to determine the general uses of substance,
provided it be one of those substances neces-
sary to the common preservation and comfort Of
the human race. Whatever may be done for
the rich, or for the diffusion more widely of the
common means Of conservation and comfort, we
may rest in the conclusion that four thousand
years Of human experience and observation have
determined the principal and most important
qualities Of such necessary articles as cotton,
WOOL silk and fax.
Look, for example, at cotton and flax; ex-
anime them in the different states in which
many thousands and even hundreds of thou
sands of persons are accustomed to see them,
and is it not well known that no persons until
very recently have pretended even to discover
in fax the softness and pliability Of cotton
Feel them in their raw state, how different to
the touch is cotton from fax-its soft, pliable
nature from the rough coat of the latter Ex-
anime them after the brake has Invested fax of
its external covering, (Which, however, is not
done until it has undergone a long exposure to
the weather in order to soften it, and consid-
erably modified it's natural harshness it is still
far from the softness of cotton. Examine it
again after it has been still further modified by
the sWangIang process, and even then it does
not exceed in softness and pliability the coarser
kinds of cotton. Cotton of this kind enters into
an equal competition with it, and for reasons
which we will briefly explain in the sequel,
carries off the palm. But Of the finer kinds of
cotton, fabrics are made which fax has never
yet equalled, and which none have pretended
it capable of rivaling, until recently, when a
few self-styled reformers and discoveries have
pretended, under the influence of monomania,
that it is capable not only of rivaling but, to
and superb productions of cotton.
So much for facts. But men, even of high
intellect, have, on certain subjects, labored un-
der monomania, OF particular madness, con-
fined to one subject, yet showing occasionally
its influence in other parts of their conduct
Rosseau, one of the most eloquent writer's
France or any other country ever produced, of
q ,la op5 nl,l
in the maturity Of his faculties that all the
philosophers and literary men Of continental
Europe had entered INTO conspiracy to perse-
cute and harass him. Dr. johnson, the author
Of the Rambler, of the Idler, of the Lipes of the
British Poets-a man whose knowledge, proba-
bly,, equalled Burke's, and whose conversational
powers were not exceeded by that master both
of colloquy and eloquence-believed in the
Cock-Lane ghost! So, Mr. Greeley man of
genius and talent-has, with few satellites
who delight to describe circle round him as
their central orb-against the obvious proper
ties and well-known characteristics of two ia
miliar substances, on which experiment and
observation have been operating for thirty cen
turtles determined that, it is extremely probable
that fax will supersede cotton as the material
for clothing
Not only have they come to entertain this
idea, in contradiction to an experience so long
and of such diffusion, but in defiance of the
well-known laws Of the vegetable kingdom of
nature.
That man might not rest in uncertainty, but
be enabled to calculate on the probabilities of
subsistence, and evolve the powers of nature
necessary thereto, the Omnipotent Ruler has
not, in the structure of the earth, cast abroad
at random the substances in which those pow
ers consist or from which, by simple and
easy process in most cases, they may be OBJ
tanned. Beside the coal-feld, He has estab-
ished the beds of iron ore. Over the face of
the earth he has distributed with liberal hand
the quarries of stone and Of marble, and the
kinds Of earth from which brick may be easily
manufactured. Some substances exist in null
tiplied quantity, because everywhere necessary
for mans preservation and comfort. Others are
adapted to peculiarities of climate and soil, and
flourish only within their limits. Thus we find
fax, wool, silk, and, above all, cotton, very ex-
tensiyely diffused. But while we class these all
together as substances largely tributary to the
benefit of man, we are fully sensible of the
vastly more extended utility Of cotton. A
glance at some of the laws of the vegetable
world will show how immensely behind cotton
is this boosted production, fax. In the remarks
on this point which we are about to make, we
consider not the utmost limits in which fax and
cotton can be cultivated, but within which
they flourish. This is determined by climate.
In general, in North America, from the doth
degree Of north latitude to the 35th, fax may
flourish, or within about fve degrees of latitude.
In similar soils and climates in South America,