274 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ing very large bounties to those producing the first of a given quantity 

 of the several textiles, to be exbiljited before a Board of Judges, of ^Yhich. 

 the Governor of the State is President. The sum total of bounties 

 offered by the Legislature reaches the sum of one hundred and eleven 

 thousand two hundred dollars, irrespective of the annual appropriation 

 of four thousand dollars to the State Agricultural Society, besides one 

 thousand dollars each to the four district societies, and five hundred dol- 

 lars each to the county agricultural societies, to be ex])ended in pre- 

 miums for articles the product of the industrj^ of the people of the State. 

 The Act of the Legislature contemplated the production in the State of 

 nearly all the gi-eat staples of everyday nocessit}'. as well as many of the 

 luxuries, which put every clime under tribute to furnish supplies. 



The reasons Avhy cotton culture in the Pacific States will never be a 

 successful industry, except in a few localities in the southern part of 

 California, will effectually explode all visions that this side of the conti- 

 nent will ever become a formidable rival of the Gulf States as a grower 

 of cotton textiles. 



COTTON GROWING IN THE PACIFIC STATES A FAILURE FROM METEOROLOGI- 

 CAL CAUSES. 



ISTo plant in the vegetable kingdom holding so important a relation to 

 the necessities of mankind, requires so pampered an existence, both in 

 the nourishment it must obtain from the soil and the required condition 

 of the atmosphere, in order that it may reach its most perfect develop- 

 ment and maturity, as does the cotton. 



Sensitive to cold in the extreme degree, if the spring is excessively 

 wet the young plants will have a 3-ellow, sickly hue, and maintain a pre- 

 carious tenure of life, until the summer solstice has deepl}' and eiiectually 

 warmed the earth about its roots. The States and Territories on the 

 Pacific slope, to which I design my observations to apply while treating 

 of cotton culture in this paper, have the meteorological phenomenon of 

 a wet and dry season, each oceupjing with rigid exactness an equal por- 

 tion of the year. The wet season commences in ISTovember, and termi- 

 nates in May. During this period there is a low temperature of the 

 atmosphere, so that, v.'ith the frequent and often copious showers of 

 rain, the earth becomes cool and stores up a supply' of moisture against 

 the impending six months of drought. This coolness of the atmosphere 

 and soil, while favorable to the cereals and grasses, is, in the reverse 

 ratio, detrimental to the cotton plant. Of a large number of plants 

 growing in different portions of the State, which I have examined, not 

 one of them had a healthy ap])earance until after the close of the rainy 

 season. The close of the rainy season is succeeded by cold, dry winds, 

 which have the effect to dry the surface of the ground; this cheeks the 

 growth of the surface roots and induces the sending down of a single 

 strong tap root in all of the annuals. Plants which procure their suste- 

 nance chiefly from a tap root, spindle up with a corresponding stem, 

 quite as devoid of vigorous side branches above the surface of the ground 

 as they are of lateral roots below it. This is the condition in which the 

 cotton plant is found in the beginning of the season in California. The 

 object of the cultivator should be to induce the emission of vigorous side 

 branches at as early a period in the season as possible, a^ it is on these 

 he must expect to find the earliest maturing bolls. The emission of 

 strong lateral branches on the cotton plant is greatlj^ promoted by fre- 

 quent warm rains during June and the early part of July, a climatic 



