ORIGIN OF THE HINDI COTTON. 11 



Although reversion to Hindi characters frequently occurs when 

 the Egyptian cotton is hybridized with United States Upland vari- 

 eties, there are also many Upland characters that seldom or never 

 appear among the Hindi reversions and thus enable recent contami- 

 nation with Upland cotton to be detected. 



Approved : 



James Wilson, 



Secretary of Agriculture. 



Washington, D. C, October 19, 1909. 



Note. — After this circular was written, the Library of the Department of 

 Agriculture acquired a set of the files of the Cairo Scientific Journal, a recently 

 established publication not hitherto accessible in Washington. Two papers 

 touching upon the origin of the Hindi cotton and containing many interesting 

 historical facts appeared in this journal in 1908, both by scientific investigators 

 resident in Egypt. The first paper, written by Mr. W. Lawrence Balls for the 

 July number, inclines to the current idea that the Hindi cotton is a native of 

 Egypt and adjacent regions, though adducing no direct evidence. The second 

 paper, in the November number, is by Mr. F. Fletcher, who had previously 

 lived in India and investigated the Indian cottons. 



The Hindi cotton is said not to be grown in India at the present day, but 

 Fletcher states that " it is cultivated near Bagdad under this same title and 

 is supposed to have been introduced there from India, as its name suggests." 

 No consideration is given to the idea of the Hindi cotton as a native of Egypt, 

 Watt's view of its relations to Gossniiium punctaium and American Upland 

 cottons being apparently accepted. The possibility of a Central African origin 

 of the Hindi cotton is noted, on the basis of a Hindi-like herbarium specimen 

 dating from 1SG3 labeled as representing a cotton introduced into Egypt from 

 Cordofan. Fletcher adds that he has " received many samples of seed from 

 Central Africa, but none of these have given rise to Hindi plants." 



Still older specimens from Upper Egypt and Abyssinia, described by early 

 authors under the name frutescens and considered by Balls as possibly per- 

 taining to Hindi, are shown by Fletcher to be true Old World types, not related 

 to the Hindi cotton or to the Egyptian. Balls also refers to Gossypiiim viti- 

 folium as a Central African cotton with " free, naked seeds." Fletcher does 

 not look upon G. vltifoliiun as related to the Hindi cotton, but accepts it as one 

 of the ancestors of the Egyptian, the Sea Island as the other. Balls finds that 

 a variety of Sea Island cotton has been cultivated at Ramla, in the Menufiyeh 

 district, for thirty years, which may explain the tendency of the Egyptian 

 cotton to vary in the direction of the Sea Island. 



Fletcher also studied at Paris Lamarck's original type of vitifolium, sup- 

 posed to come from Celebes, though the locality is doubtful. He concludes 

 that an Egyptian specimen referred to Lamarck's species by Delile over a 

 century ago was correctly identified, and gives photographs of the original 

 specimens, which are not altogether favorable to his conclusions. It can be 

 seen that the involucral bracts of Lamarck's plant were of distinctly un- 

 Egyptian form, the teeth being coarse and long and extending far down toward 

 the base of the bracts, as in the Hindi cotton. Fletcher also considers that the 

 Delile plant agrees with a specimen of " Jumel " cotton sent from Egypt to 

 [Cir. 42] 



