The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
AGRICULTURE / COTTON
I have no doubt the cotton plant will succeed in some of the southern
parts of France. Whether its culture will be as advantageous as those
they are now engaged in, remains to be tried. We could, in the United
States, make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not
exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good. Yet I have ever
observed to my country-men, who think its introduction important, that
a laborer cultivating wheat, rice, tobacco, or cotton here, will be
able with the proceeds, to purchase double the quantity of the wine he
could make. Possibly the same quantity of land and labor in France
employed on the rich produce of your Southern counties, would purchase
double the quantity of the cotton they would yield there. This however
may prove otherwise on trial, and therefore it is worthy the trial. In
general, it is a truth that if every nation will employ itself in what
it is fittest to produce, a greater quantity will be raised of the
things contributing to human happiness, than if every nation attempts
to raise everything it wants within itself.
to Lasteyrie, 15 July 1808
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