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Show 134 DESPOTJSI\I \ SEC'l'ION Y. Instability and uncertainty of values in tlte SlaveHolding States. The necessity which the southern planters are under of confining themselves to the production of a few great staple crops, has been already stated and cxplamcd. Slave labor in the United States was first apphed to the cultivation of tobacco . . But the foreign demand for. that article has ?een statwnary ever since ~he revolutiOnary war, while the domestic demand mcreases only in proportion to the increase of the populatiOn. Smce the facJhties of transportation between the western states and the Atlantic seaboard have been so much increased by the construction of canals and ratlroads, the farmers of Ohio have gone extensively mto the culttvatton of tobacco. They produce it by free labor, and the quantity of slave labor which can be profitably employed in this culture is more likely to mcreasc than to diminish. 'l'he second application of slave labor in the United States, was to the cultivation of rice. rrhat cultivation however is and always JJas been, confined to a narrow tract of country along the sea coast of South Carolina and Georgia· and as the demand for the article is nearly station~ry, any considerable increase of the production would so diminish the price as to make 1t an unprofitable business. Sugar is produced chiefly in the southern districts of Louisiana. This culture has been fostered by a protectlve duty, but the climate is too cold and unsteady for its extensive prosecution. A few favorable seasons cre&tcd a very false idea of the profits of th is cultivation. A series of cold seasons has corrected these hasty impressions. Even including •rexas and Florida, the production of cane sugar in the United States must always be restricted to a limited area. The cultivation of colton, an article of which the lN AMERICA. 135 consumption has so remarkably increased within the last fifty years, has alone prevented the entire depreciation of southern property. 'l..,here has been thus furnished a crop, to the production of which the labor of slaves could be profitably applied, and which has prevented such a competition in the other limited applications of slave labor above enumerated, as would have rendered them utterly ruinous. 'l'he cotton cultivated in the United Stales is of two distinct kinds, known in commerce, as Sea island, and upland or short staple. The Sea island cotton has a long silky fibre which adheres so slightly to the seed, as to be easily removed by tneans of two wooden rollers turning upon each other, which suffer the cotton wool to pass between them, but which exclude and separate the seed. 'l'his kind of cotton is employed only in the finest manufactures, and its consumption is very limited.. It bears a much higher value than the other description but it is less productive, and requires great care and labor in its preparation for market. 'l'he sea air seems essential to it, and its cultivation is limited to an alluvial tract along the sea coast of South Carolina and Georgia. The cultivation of this kind of cotton was introduced about the conclusion of the revolutionary war; but it has always been of so limited an extent as to hold out no relief to the great body of the slave-holders. 'l'he upland or short staple cotton, has a short fibre adhering with such tenacity to the seed, as to require the saw gin, an invention of the ingenious '.Yhitney, for its separation. This kind of cotton succeeds as well in the interior as near the sea, and it is this kind, the consumption of which has so rapidly increased. It first began to be cultiva ted as a crop about the beginning of the present ccntnry. For the. first twcuty y~ars its production was principally confined to Geor~ la and the Carol in as. Since that time it has spread mto the new states of the south-west, which now pro~ uce more than three fourths of the entire crop, which m the period since the peace with Great Britain in |