8 ORIGIN OF THE HINDI COTTON. 



varieties have been imported at different times for experimental pur- 

 poses. Some American cottons appear to have been cultivated in 

 India for a long time, perhaps dating back to early Portuguese intro- 

 ductions from Brazil. All that can be said at present is that none 

 of the cottons from India that have been grown in the United States 

 show any close approximation to the Hindi cotton. 



The idea of the Hindi cotton as a wild plant in Egypt may have 

 been strengthened, if not suggested in the first place, by the fact that 

 Egyptian cotton stunted by dry soil or other unfavorable conditions 

 shows a stronger resembhmce to the Hindi. The first leaves of the 

 Egyptian cotton have nearly the same shape and color as the adult 

 leaves of the Hindi, and stunted plants continue to produce the juvenile 

 form of leaves. The proportions of adult Hindi plants also appear 

 to be influenced by the external conditions in different plantings of the 

 same stock of seeds. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that 

 Egyptian cotton escaped from cultivation might go over more and 

 more to the Hindi type. A further reason for considering the Hindi 

 cotton as a collateral relative of the Egyptian, if not a truly ancestral 

 form, may be found in the fact that many hybrids between the 

 Egyptian cotton and United States Upland varieties show Hindi 

 characteristics rather than those of the parental types. 



The fact that the affinities of the Hindi cotton have been so long 

 misjudged would tend to show that Indian and Egyptian students of 

 cotton have not been familiar with the Mexican and Central Ameri- 

 can types. It is possible that the Hindi contamination already 

 existed in the Egyptian cotton when it was introduced into Egypt 

 and that its existence in that country resulted from reversion rather 

 than from local contamination. The Sea Island cotton of the United 

 States, that has never been in Egypt, also shows sudden variations, 

 the so-called " male stalks " or " bull cotton," commonly reckoned as 

 hybrids, but having a general similarity to the Hindi reversions of 

 the Egyptian cotton and the same tendency to sterility and inferior 

 fiber." 



EELATIONSHIPS OF EGYPTIAN COTTON". 



There are also many indigenous varieties of the general Sea Island 

 type of cotton in the American Tropics, and often in the same locali- 

 ties with indigenous Upland varieties, so that opportunities for 

 crosses may have existed through long periods of time. Some of the 

 Mexican and Central American varieties of the Upland series share 

 the long-pointed bolls and some of the other characters of the Sea 



« Orton, W. A. Sea Island Cotton : Its Culture, Improvement, and Diseases. 

 Farmers' Bulletin 302, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1907, p. 29. 

 [Cir. 42] 



