Houma Ceres. [volume] (Houma, Parish of Terrebonne, La.) 1855-18??, 1855-07-19
PARISH OF TERREBONNE. La. THURSDAY JULY l9. 1855.

I Il L 4 K 4
cotton cultivation IN It's present immense
expansion. The transition from our cil-
mate TO that Of Lower India are So
abrupt, that the herbaccous forms can scar
ccly be retained: and when the limits of
this more purely tropicalresion are passed,
the mountainous character Of that CONT
nent soon shut off the cultivation altogeth-
er. The upland districts OF India, in
which the plant wiz retain lis herbaceous
character, are too limited io supply any
important measure of the damaud now
created in the commerce OF the world.
Ofpersia, Egypt, and Italy, the same
remark may lie made. Mexico has also
but limited area adapted to field culture
of herbaceous cotton; and though allthese
districts may produce i, for local supply,
they are in no condition to furnish those
surplus amounts of the raw material SO
mperatiyely necessary in the commercial
States. With the demand rapidly and
constantly extended as it has been for the
half century, the capacity of these older
districts of its cultivation would have ex-
hibited some expansion if such had been
possible; but we note steady, and some
times large, decrease in the produce OF
Mexico Africa generally, and part of Asia,
except India, for the three -tourhs of a cen
tury. ....
The capacities of India have been more
fully tried than any part Of United States
within this period, in persistent and we'll
directed efforts TO extend this cultivation.
The wants of English government, and
the interest of their rule in India, have
pressed them to make every exertion in
cultivation, and in the initiation of new
modes. 1t has been attempted to make
the American adaptation available there,
and the well-established success of GER
tain species of the plant, and certain modes
of cultivation here, have been, as far as
could be done, transplanted together to
India, in the hope of attaining similar sue
cess there. But the American adaptation
was itself spontaneous result, rather
than conflict with climatogical difficulties
and it appears wholly impossible to trans
plant its peculiar success. For the most
of India the biennial or perannial species
are best adapted, and its tropical climate
either destroys the produce of the annual
plant or changes it to the perennial form.
Most Of the American plants fail there 10
produce good cotton at all, and the recent
faithful and expensive efforts to introduce
It, point only to this result, and must be
regarded as failures. .....- .-..
Whether the species peculiar or well
adapted to tropical climates may be mo-
dified so far as to compete with the cotton
of temperate latitudes remains undeter-
mined. except as the present want Of any
success and adaptation may have deter
mined it. There is no positive evidence
that the purely tropical cotton may ever
supply the want of civilized nations, nor
does the Old World appear to offer field
for the cultivation of any species in any
considerable degree of expansion beyond
their present amount, and that which they
! have produced for an indefinite period.
/ From this comparison of the more ge-
neral results, there are stronger motives
suggested for such an analysis of or Pc
culiar adaptation as shall show what the
best resultare that can be reached here.
Very little affort to extension has been
made here in fact. the great advantages
we clearly possess may be improved, per-
haps, in large measure. As said before
also. the climate advantage is positive
and permanent one, and cannot, at any
time, fail to the limit we have proved it.
The Importance of the peculiar cli-
natology of the cotton-plant as grown IN
| America deserves some attention of the
stati,iscal matter given in connexion with
the remarks upon the growth of the cane.
There are also some misapprehensions, it
would appear, respecting the atmospheric
humidity of the cotton districts OF the sea-
coast, and the real causes of excellence
of the Sea Island cotton. This is attri-
buted, in some instances, to the greater
humidity of this sea climate, and to meas
ures of this humidity which certainly
prove destructive in other localities. There
is not, in reality, so large share of reia-
| tive humidity, nor SO great positive a.
mount of moisture contained in the air,
on the immediate coast and islands of the
Southern Atlantic States, as is often found
in the interior, and as quite uniformly pre-
walls at New Orleans in the summer
months. There distributions Of the a.