294 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



to that which the equivalent commercial varieties would produce. 

 The samples, it should be noted, were " ugly," owing to the 

 cultivation and treatment they had received. The same cottons 

 wire then sent by the writer to Lancashire, where they were put 

 through spinning tests. The results of these tests surprised 

 those who made them, the ugly ducklings turning out to be 

 veritable swans, equal to high grades of the equivalent com- 

 mercial varieties. 



The reason is obvious. A pure strain gives a more uniform 

 product, its only irregularities being those due to cultivation 

 and fluctuation. When an impure commercial variety— and all 

 commercial varieties are impure — is cultivated, as these samples 

 were, its appearance is equally discounted, and its natural 

 irregularity is intensified. Thus, an "ugly" sample of a pure 

 strain is equal to a good-looking sample of commercial cotton, 

 and judgments passed upon pure-strain cotton by its external 

 appearance are necessarily far below the truth. 



If a committee of the best experts can have their deductions 

 so completely upset by merely substituting a pure strain for a 

 commercial one, it follows that Uniformity is the first object for 

 science to provide for the spinner. There is no need to elaborate 

 the point, since nobody now denies the impurity of commercial 

 varieties, nor has the spinner made any secret at any time of his 

 desire for regular cotton ; but it may be mentioned in passing 

 that evidence is beginning to indicate that many other properties 

 of the cotton lint which are separated under other names can be 

 in part referred to this property of Uniformity. 



For the rest of this article we can confine our attention to 

 the main issue, as to the steps which science and the trade 

 should take mutually in order to increase the yield and improve 

 the uniformity of the product in those lands which can or do 

 grow cotton crops. 



These steps naturally classify themselves into three groups : 

 improvements in the seed-supply, in the culture of the plant, 

 and in the utilisation of the raw material. The spinners may 

 be trusted to take care of the last, in the future as in the past, if 

 only in self-interest. Seed-supply of pure strains would seem 

 to have great possibilities, as we have just seen, and it is 

 eminently suited to control the result of native labour. Without 

 skilful cultivation, even the most perfect pure strain is useless, 

 though not so useless as an impure variety, and for the supply 



