Note 276 — Chapter IV · AGRICULTURAL TRIBES.

We must further take into consideration that slavery on a very large scale is only possible, where industrial crops are raised. “Tobacco and cotton” says Cairnes, “fulfil that condition which we saw was essential to the economical employment of slaves—the possibility of working large numbers within a limited space; while wheat and Indian corn, in the cultivation of which the labourers are dispersed over a wide surface, fail in this respect”276. And cotton and similar crops are only cultivated in large quantity where they are exported.