"We should miss our coffee very much," he said, "if our country were blockaded at any time. The loss of the banana would be the loss of a luxury. Had we no macaroni or tapioca we should still have enough to eat. Perhaps our taste would become more natural were we deprived of pepper. No other of the foods on this table should we be entirely deprived of, even were we separated wholly from the rest of the world. California could furnish us with olives, lemons, and almonds, as well as Italy does. We need not go to England for filberts, and even if we had not of late obtained new colonies, we could produce in time all the sugar we needed to supply the entire country. No other nation in the world is so well prepared to furnish its own food." [Illustration: ELI WHITNEY.] [Illustration: A QUILTING BEE IN THE OLDEN TIME.] SECTION IV.--CLOTHING. CHAPTER I. COLONIAL CONDITIONS. You all know that the United States of America was formed out of thirteen English colonies scattered along the Atlantic coast. Virginia was the first of these colonies to be founded, dating from 1607. Massachusetts was settled in 1620, New York in 1623, and so on until the last of the thirteen, Georgia, was established in 1733. From the time of these settlements until the Declaration of Independence in 1776, these colonies were subject to Great Britain and under her rule and control. The independence of these American colonies was a great loss to the British government, but it created a new nation of the same race which, together with the mother country, to-day holds the destiny of the world in its hands. Great Britain for centuries has been largely a manufacturing country. It was the policy of the British government to control so far as possible manufactures and commerce for all her provinces and colonies. Hence during our colonial period the home government took every possible measure to prevent the introduction of manufactures into the colonies. We were dependent upon the mother country for cotton and woolen goods, cutlery, iron ware, and, indeed, almost everything that could be profitably manufactured in England and shipped to this country. Even after we had secured out independence, the strictest care was taken by the officials of England that drawings and models of machinery should not be brought to America.