COLTIVAZIONE. DEL COTONE
   253
   half a mili ioli of bales of cotton. A labourer in the United States produces, on an average, from six to seven bales of cotton annually.
   Now, from tbe above considerations, it results Ourcondition that we have in Italy, first, a very numerous pò- [CcuUiv^ pai alio ìi requi ring a very low rate of irages. If only tion of cotto a seven or eight hundred thousand of our labourers should be employed in the cultivation of cotton, we should produce almost as much as is gathered in the United States. Second, agricultural ir adi-tionSy existing in almost ali parts of Italy, of good methods for the cultivation. Third, excellent varieties of cotton acclimatised in the country from lime im-memorial. The two last mentioned facts, would, evcu if other countries exhibited ali other con-ditions equal to our own, suffìce to secure to Italy an immense snperiority, because they virtuali y imply the possibility of undertaking, at once, a very extended cultivation. Fourth, abun-dance of land fitted J'or this cultivation. If about the tenth part of the land included in our zone for the cultivation of cotton were employed for that purpose, we should produce in Italy almost as much cotton as the United States sent to Europe before the outbreak of the war. Cotton is, with us, an annual plant, and its crops might quite well be produced in rotation with wheat " and with the other products of Italian agricul-ture; and for the tenth part of the soil, not of ali Italy, but of some of the Italian provinces, to be employed in that species of cultivation, would present nothiug extraordinary. Perhaps, one-fifteenth of the whole soil of Great Britain is employed to grow turni ps and potatoes, and a tweutieth part of the French soil is set apart for the cultivation of beetroot and other roots. The tenth part of the Italian soil lying within the zone of the cotton cultivation only repre-