458 Account of tie Perpan Cotton-Tree^ 



year in hot countries, and once a year in colder climates. It bears a large yellow flower 

 ■with a purple centre, and fruit about the fize of a walnut containing the cotton. 



This is the famous Perfian cotton properly ihe fubjedt of the paper, although a flight 

 mention of other fpecies was neceflary to give a more complete view of the fubjedt. Lin- 

 naeus calls it a native of America ; and there is no doubt but that it is become fo, although 

 there is much more reafon to fuppofe America naturalized a Perfian plant than that Perfia 

 got it from the new world ; efpeci«lly if we are to credit a paper lately prefented by a Bri- 

 tifli merchant to the Economical Society at Peterfburgh, in which it is pofitively afferted 

 that feveral of the European nations furnilhed their American colonies with Perfian cotton 

 feed procured at Smyrna. Now this fa£l (if fufBciently authentic, which I do not doubt 

 from my knowledge of the veracity of the author) will eafily account for the G. herbaceum 

 being found wild in America •, when we recoilefl: the wonderful provifion of nature for the 

 wide difperfion of feeds, and Linnxus's affertion that the Erigeron canadenfe was difpcrfed 

 from the botanic garden of Paris by the winds over a great part of Europe, and feveral 

 other plants* from the botanic garden of Upfal over a whole province. 



My reafons for fuggelling thefe doubts relative to the native country of this fpecies of 

 cotton are, that all vegetables of this genus are fuppofed to have been indigenous in Perfia 

 exclufively, and that even the Eaft Indies derived the cotton plants from thence ; a conjec- 

 ture which feems to have acquired fome degree of credit from the late difcovery of Sir 

 William Jones, viz. that the Hindoos, or inhabitants of India, were originally a colony of 

 the ancient Iran or Perfia, which feems to have been the cradle of the human fpecies, fince 

 its ancient language appears to have been the mother of all thofe now exifting (with the 

 exception of the Arabic and Tartarian), of which neverthelefs it contained many words. 



Now it is very poffible that the firft colony carried the cotton plant with them to India, 

 and that it was afterwards difpcrfed from Hindoflan to the adjacent countries and iflands. 

 The cotton plant is widely difperfed likewife throughout Europe and fome parts of Africa, 

 particularly the annual or herbaceous fpecies (the very plant treated of here) reared in the 

 north of Perfia, and which is alfo cultivated in Malta f, Sicily, Chio, Lemnos, and other 

 iflands of the Archipelago, although poflibly the cotton of thefe iflands may be varieties of 

 the fpecies from diflference of foil, climate, &c. 



The beft of the European cotton is brought from Cyprus ; but Smyrna, Aleppo, Da- 

 mafcus, Jerufalem, &c. furnifli likewife a quantity of cotton at lead equal to the Eu- 

 ropean. 



Cultivation of Cotton in Perfia, 



THE annual cotton, or this laft fpecies, of which we have treated more amply, is much 

 cultivated in the northern or colder provinces of Perfia bordering on the Cafpian Sea (as 

 ..the perennial is in the fouthern) ; and it is from thence that the feeds now fent to Portugal 

 have been obtained through the Bucharian Tartar merchants, and are the produdlion of 

 the GoJJypium herbaceum of Linnaeus, the Gojfypium annuum of Pallas. It is fown in Perfia 

 from the end of March to the end of April, and reaped in September. This fpecies re 

 quires a rich foil mixed with fand ; and therefore where the land is not rich enough they 



• The Antirrhinum minus, the Datura ftrantonium, the Gnaphalium amcricanum, &c. 

 f There is a kind of cotton cultivated in Malta, of a nankeen colour* which exceeds in finenefs all other 

 cotton, and is much fuperior even to that from the Antillet. 



manure 



