249
   of Europe. The Veneti an*, in the Island of Cv-prus, gathered more than six million pounds of cotton annually.
   You are aware how, duriug tlie wars of Na- During the poleon the First, the cultivation of eotton increa- '
   sed great ly in our Southern provinces, and how the Italian cotton s were eagerly sought for inali the market» of Europe. But, with the restoration of peace, the cultivation of cotton in Southern Italy became restricted to very narrow limita, rather in consequence of the deplorable econo-niical and politicai conditions of those provinces, than from the competition of the xVmerican cottons.
   Certain species of cotton will grow in almost Zoue of every part of Italy. During the Napoleonic wars cotton initaly and the prevalence of the Continental system, attempts were made to cultivate cotton in ali directions, even in the Northern provinces. Filippo Re, in his annals, refers to the attempts made to foster its growth in the provinces of Bologna, of Ferrara, of Verona, of Milan, and even of Treviso. But the real zone, not of the mere vegetation, but of the regular cultivation of cotton in Italy  that were experience teaches that regular and abundant cotton harvests may be obtained  lies below the forty-third degree of north latitude, and includes almost ali that part of Italy towards the South, on the southern side of an imaginary line drawn across the Pe-ninsula from the mouth of the Tronto, on the A-driatic, to the promontory of Piombino, on the Tyrrhene Sea. This zone includes, principally, a part of the Tuscan Maremma, Sardinia, and Si-cily, the Roman Campagna, and ali the provinces of Naples, or an extent of surface of more than 154 000 square kilometers, and containing more than ten millions of inhabitants. Ali the di-