298 
A good hybrid cotton may be raised as a first cross, and from the 
seed distributed an excellent yield may be obtained. In those 
countries where the ginning of the cotton is entirely in the hands of 
the Government Departments concerned it is possible to arrange 
that only good seed shall be issued from year to year in return for 
the cotton sent in to the ginnery, and the deterioration in the 
quality of the cotton, which is liable to occur with the continuous 
cultivation of the offspring of hybrid plants, can thus be avoided. 
Where, however, ginning is not centralised and the peasant pro- 
prietor runs his own hand gin, or where the ginning is done by local 
communities as obtains in India, N. Nigeria and elsewhere, the 
difficulties in the way of attempting to improve the races of cotton 
under cultivation may be well nigh insuperable. This side of the 
problem is not the one which concerns us here at the present 
moment ; the object of this note being to draw attention to a very 
important series of experiments in cotton hybridisation on proper 
scientific lines which is being carried. out by Mr. H. M. Leake, 
Economic Botanist at the Agricultural College, Cawnpore, India. 
A detailed account of these experiments has been published in the 
“Journal of Genetics,” vol. i., p. 205 (Cambridge University 
_ Press), but the following abstract account of Mr. Leake’s work is 
taken from the “ Annual Report of the Board of Scientific Advice 
for India” for the year 1910-11. 
“ Several papers on this [the cotton] crop have appeared during the 
year of which the most important are those of Leake relating to 
the work on cotton breeding at the Cawnpore Experiment Station. 
The cotton investigations in progress at this centre are concerned with 
the production and the subsequent introduction into general cultivation 
of an improved type suitable for the western cotton growing tracts 
of the United Provinces. The papers published during the past 
results likely to be obtained from these investigations chiefly 
concern the Province concerned, nevertheless both the methods 
adopted in the investigation and the ideas underlying the work are 
much more general application and will be studied by all con- 
cerned with the improvement of cotton in India. 
recent Allahabad Exhibition and reprinted in the Agricultural 
the first place the red flowered late Nurma cotton with long staple 
has been crossed with the short stapled silky form of Bani found in 
