CAOUTCHOUC TREES (INDIANS INCISING THEM).
CHAPTER XVI.
TROPICAL PLANTS USED FOR INDUSTRIAL PURPOSES.
Cotton—Its Cultivation in the United States—Caoutchouc and Gutta Percha—Manner in which these resins are collected—Indigo—The British Logwood cutters in Honduras—Brazil Wood—Arnatto.
Under the Plantagenets and the Tudors, wool formed the chief export of England. The pastoral races that inhabited the British Isles, unskilled in weaving, suffered the more industrious Flemings to convert their fleeces into tissues; and the dominions of the Duke of Burgundy, enriched by manufactures and by the stimulus they gave to agriculture, became the most prosperous part of Europe. At length the islanders began to discover the sources of the wealth which rendered Ghent and Bruges, Ypres and Louvain, the marvel and envy of the mediæval world; and gradually learning to keep their wool at home, invited the Flemings to the shores of England.
The bigoted oppression of Spain came in aid of this more enlightened policy: our wool ceased to be sent abroad, and English cloth eventually became the chief of our exports. But, like all human affairs, trade is subject to eternal fluctuation, new wants are constantly created, new markets opened, new articles introduced, and thus, almost within the memory of living man, the wool-manufactory has ceased to be the great staple of our industry; and, thanks to the inventive genius of our Arkwrights and Cromptons, a vegetable fibre furnished by a plant totally unknown to our forefathers, now ranks as the first of all the world-wide importations of England.
There are many different species of the cotton-plant, herbaceous, shrubby, and arboreal. Their original birthplace is the tropical zone, where they are found growing wild in all parts of the world; but the herbaceous species still thrive under a mean temperature of from 60° to 64° F., and are capable of being cultivated with advantage as far as 40° or even 46° N. lat. The five-lobed leaves have a dark green colour, the flowers are yellow with a purple centre, and produce a pod about the size of a walnut, which, when ripe, bursts and exhibits to view the fleecy cotton in which the seeds are securely embedded.
It is almost superfluous to mention that the United States is the first cotton-producing country in the world. The area suitable for cotton south of the thirty-sixth degree of latitude, comprises more than 39,000,000 acres, of which less than one-sixth part is now devoted to the plant. The yield depends in part upon the length of the season. Seven months are required for an average crop, and the average periods in which the last killing frost of spring and the first killing frost of autumn occur are March 23, and October 26. Cotton is cultivated in large fields, and when the soil is superior, the plant rises to a height of six or eight feet, although in the richest cane-brake soil, exhausted by successive crops, it dwindles down to a height of three or four feet only. The aspect of a cotton field is most pleasing in the autumn, when the dark-coloured foliage and bright yellow flowers, intermingling with the snow-white down of the pods when burst, produce a charming contrast. At that time all hands are at work, for it is important to pluck as much as possible during the first hours of morning, since the heat of the sun injures the colour of the cotton, and the over-ripe capsules shed their contents upon the ground, or allow the wind to carry them away.
The collected produce is immediately carried to the steam-mill to be cleansed of the seeds, and then closely packed in bales, which in the seaports are further reduced by hydraulic presses to half of their previous volume, thus causing a great saving in the freight. Large clippers frequently carry eight or ten thousand of these bales to Liverpool, whence, perhaps on the day of their arrival, they are conveyed by rail to the next manufacturing town, which returns them in a few days to the port, ready to clothe the Australian gold-digger or the labourer on the banks of the Ganges.