SCIENCE AND COTTON 29 1 



The sources of these quotations are respectively Baine's 

 History of the Cotton Manufacture, Bowman's Structure of the 

 Cotton Fibre, and an article " Some Thoughts on the Develop- 

 ment of New Cottons," by Mr. J. W. McConnel, in the Textile 

 Mercury, March 1914. 



It is a noticeable feature of the three excerpts just made that 

 their chronological order is exactly the reverse of what their 

 statements ought to indicate. If we allow a great deal for the 

 increased stringency of specialisation, it still remains that 

 whereas the natural science of its day had a part to play in the 

 cotton trade of the early nineteenth century, that part has 

 steadily diminished in importance on the spinner's side of the 

 trade, whatever its fate may have been in manufacturing. 



The rapid extension of the trade, its increasing output, and 

 consequent haste, have left little or no time or interest to spare 

 for such refinements as were not capable of yielding direct 

 profits. Some fifteen years ago the present limits of the existing 

 sources of supply came into sight, and the development of new 

 fields for cotton-growing became an urgent matter. The world 

 has now been surveyed for this purpose, and the limits of 

 productive area are fairly well defined. That which has not 

 been defined is the productivity of these areas, and so long as 

 a good field of cotton in Egypt can produce eight hundred 

 pounds of lint to the acre, while the U.S.A. actually averages 

 less than two hundred pounds, and India less than one hundred, 

 there must be room for investigations leading to direct profit, 

 in the many related branches of natural science and of economics 

 which converge upon this colossal trade. 



Nor is the yield alone implicated in this increasing pressure 

 of events which are beginning to force the trade back into 

 relationships with science. Of scarcely less importance is the 

 question of quality in the raw product. The spinner is finding 

 new demands and new markets opening before him, small and 

 narrow at first, but steadily increasing. The coming fleets of 

 the air will demand supplies of delicate yet trustworthy cotton 

 fabrics in quantities which were scarcely dreamed of a generation 

 ago. In proportion as the financial interests involved in these 

 finer branches of the trade increase, so will the spinner begin 

 to wonder more and more whether it is really necessary that he 

 should have to remove the present amounts of waste fibre from 

 the cotton he purchases. He will be driven to follow the lead 



