The history of silk, cotton, linen, wool, and other fibrous ... - Cd3wd.com

THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. 331
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, Madure,
Marawar, Pescaria, and the coast of Malabar, produce the finest
cottont." He elsewhere says—" Cotton is cultivated in every
part of India :
the finest grows in the light rocky soil of Guze-
rat, Bengal, Oude, and Agra. The cultivation of this plant is
very lucrative, an acre
in the yeart"
producing about nine quintals of cotton
On the discovery of this continent by Columbus, Cotton
formed the principal article of clothing among the Mexicans.
We are informed by the Abbe Clavigero that " of cotton the
Mexicans made large ivebs, 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 feath-
ery interwoven with cotton, they made mantles and bed-cur-
tains, carjyets, gowns, and other things, not less soft than
beautiful. With cotton also they interxDOve the finest hair of
the belly of rabbits and hares, after having sjnot it into
thread : of this they made most beautiful cloths, and in par-
ticular Avinter waistcoats for their lords§." Among the pres-
ents sent by "Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, to Chailes V.,
were " cotton mantles, some all white, others mixed with white
and black, or red, green, yellow, and blue ; waistcoats, handker-
chiefs, counterpanes, tapestries, and carpets of cotton ; and the
* Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405.
t Malte Brun, vol. iii. p. 30. t Ibid. vol. iii. p. 303.
^ Clavigero's History of Mexico, book vii. sect. 57, 66.