THE WORLD'S COTTONS — HUTCHINSON 505 



temala and Yucatan were occupied by typical race punctatum,^ with 

 the specialized form collected by Stephens on the coastal sand dunes 

 near Progreso (see above) — race yucatanense — representing the 

 escape of an exceptionally specialized form into natural vegetation. 

 The second well-ltnown race, race marie- galante^ was represented in 

 collections from Salvador and southern Guatemala. These plants, 

 though evidently belonging to marie-galante^ were smaller bushes 

 than the large forms of the Spanish Main and the Lesser Antilles. 

 They still possessed the characteristic dominance of t\\Q main stem 

 that makes the development of tree forms possible, and distinguishes 

 marie-galante from the bushy, much-branched punctatum. 



In Central Mexico in Oaxaca, Puebla, and Morelos the perennial 

 cottons were bushy forms with very broad and intensely hairy leaves. 

 These were named race morrilVi. In the state of Guerrero it appears 

 that a race — palmerl — of pyramidal shrubs with deeply dissected 

 leaves and strong anthocyanin pigmentation is almost imiversal. 

 Last among the perennials is a strong-growing, lax shrub found in a 

 rather small area round the coasts of the Gulf of Tehuantepec. 



One other race, latifolium^ was found in the state of Chiapas in 

 Mexico and in neighboring regions in Guatemala. This is an aimual 

 cotton. It is not an early-fruiting, specialized agricultural type, and 

 it may persist for more than one year. But, as distinct from the 

 perennial races, it gives its major crop in the first year. There are 

 two main forms: a small-fruited form that occurs throughout the 

 area, and a large-fruited, large-leaved form found m the vicinity of 

 the town of Acala in the state of Chiapas in Mexico. This race 

 appears to be the foundation stock of all tlie annual G. hirsutum 

 cottons. In Central America it has spread into the territories of 

 races morrllli and palmeri. There, the advantage of annual cottons 

 for commercial cultivation has led to the spread of the neighboring 

 annual form, and natural hybridization with the local perennial has 

 led to the emergence of an annual with some of the characters of its 

 perennial predecessor. 



The spread beyond Central America has been enormous (fig. 4). 

 First came the colonization of the Cotton Belt of the United States of 

 America. The source of the first introductions is not known, but 

 there are numerous records of subsequent introductions from Mexico, 

 at intervals down to the time of the discovery of the big-boiled types 

 from Acala which have given the modern very high-yielding com- 

 mercial types of that name now grown in Arizona and California. 



The annual hirsutum cottons of the United States became known as 

 "Uplands" (to distinguish them from the "Sea Island" cottons of the 

 coastal islands, which belong to G. harhadense) , and their develop- 

 ment coincided with the development of the cotton industry in Lanca- 

 shire. As an index of the rate of growlli of the crop, in 1784 Customs 



