Page:The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous substances 2.djvu/371

 containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, exhibiting at the same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and the snowy flakes of ripe cotton, is one of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan ."

The following general statement concerning the cotton of India, is from the geographical work of Malte Brun:—"The cotton-tree grows on all the Indian mountains, but its produce is coarse in quality: the herbaceous cotton prospers chiefly in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast, and there the best cotton goods are manufactured. Next to these two provinces, Maduré, Marawar, Pescaria, and the coast of Malabar, produce the finest cotton ." He elsewhere says—"Cotton is cultivated in every part of India: the finest grows in the light rocky soil of Guzerat, Bengal, Dude, and Agra. The cultivation of this plant is very lucrative, an acre producing about nine quintals of cotton in the year ."

On the discovery of this continent by Columbus, Cotton formed the principal article of clothing among the Mexicans.

We are informed by the Abbé Clavigero that "of cotton the Mexicans made large webs, and as delicate and fine as those of Holland, which were, with much reason, highly esteemed in Europe. They wove their cloths of different figures and colors, representing different animals and flowers. Of feathers interwoven with cotton, they made mantles and bed-curtains, carpets, gowns, and other things, not less soft than beautiful. With cotton also they interwove the finest hair of the belly of rabbits and hares, after having spun it into thread: of this they made most beautiful cloths, and in particular winter waistcoats for their lords ." Among the presents sent by Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, to Charles V., were "cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue; waistcoats, handkerchiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton; and the