506 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



An unusually protracted rainy season, or even heavy and 

 continuous night-dews during the dry time, are apt to prevent 

 the flowers from forming into fruit ; or the wet forbids the 

 pods from expanding, and decays the cotton inside. Equally 

 with long damp, the bright rays of the sun during rain will 

 occasion the half- ripened pods to drop off; while various 

 diseases, to which the fruit is subject, especially those, tech- 

 nically termed cancer and jaundice, frequently blight the hopes 

 of the cultivator and materially diminish his gains. Both 

 these diseases generally arise from excess of moisture. Birds, 

 caterpillars, grasshoppers, and the bug, infest the plantations 

 from time to time ; and though they are minute enemies, they 

 effect much injury ; while the gathered crop is often in immi- 

 nent danger from that destructive animal, the rat, whose well- 

 known subtlety eludes the Fazendeiro's precautions. As the 

 kernel of the seed is the object of the rat's attacks, the best 

 method of securing the pods is to shake a stratum of the 

 kernels, divested of cotton, over the others. 



The separation of the pure wool from the kernels was for- 

 merly performed by a very simple process, namely two rollers, 

 passing over each other in opposite directions, and set m 

 motion by the hand ; but now, the Fazendeiros often use ma- 

 chines, more or less complicated, though constructed on the 

 same principle. In like manner, the packing of the cotton into 

 bags of coarse cotton cloth was formerly done by the negroes, 

 who trode the substance into the moistened and suspended 

 bags, which it required all the efforts of their feet to fill at 

 the rate of one a-day ; whereas presses are now always used 

 for the same purpose. The real intrinsic value of the 

 cotton, when clean and packed, fit for exportation, was 

 stated to me, by an accurate Portuguese farmer, after deduct- 

 ing the expense of its production, at 3,800 reis, or rather more 

 than 9 florins. 



One evening, during the earlier part of our residence at 

 Cachias, we were attracted to the window by a bellowing 

 noise in the street, where we beheld the singular sight of a 



