64 report — 1842. 



collecting cotton. He concludes his letter by saying that next year, if the season is 

 but moderately favourable, they will be enabled to send nearly if not quite J 000 

 bales of American cotton. 



The Professor concluded his paper by stating, that from the results of some of the 

 former, as well as from many of those of the present experiments,- and from the 

 modifications in culture, which would be made to suit the several situations, he had 

 no doubt that, by the acclimation of the American cottons in some localities, and by 

 the improvement of the native cottons in others, good cotton, that is, such as is re- 

 quired for many of the Manchester manufacturers, would be produced with profit in 

 India. In fact, the principal question remaining to be determined, was the quantity 

 of cotton which would be produced per acre by adopting or modifying the American 

 method of culture, so as to make them perfectly suitable to India. 



The paper was illustrated by drawings of the several species described ; the different 

 kinds of seed, as well as with specimens of cotton grown by the American planters 

 in all the three Presidencies, which were all well cleaned by the American gins sent 

 out by the Court of Directors, and made by Mr. Laird, Liverpool, and with which 

 the planters seem generally well satisfied, as well as with the ploughs and hoes. 



The cottons produced were pronounced well cleaned and of good quality by some 

 of the Manchester gentlemen present, and the New Orleans cotton grown in the red 

 soil of Coimbatore, as good as any New Orleans cotton received from America, and 

 that it would be a most useful cotton and much consumed in Manchester. 



Mr. Bazley exhibited specimens of cotton and living cotton plants. 



Mr. Dew'oain exhibited the downy fruit jjf the Black Poplar. It was the produce 

 of a tree that had not hitherto borne fruit, and he had heard of several trees having 

 this year produced fruit in like manner. 



On the Promotion of Vegetable Groioth. By G. W. Hall. 



Mr. Hall showed the importance of the subject, not only to the general resources of 

 the country, but in its direct relation to the scientific objects of the Section. He traced 

 the several causes of vegetable growth, and enumerated the elementary constituents 

 needed for that object ; showing the progressive changes through which the simple 

 elements were carried by the several processes of fermentation and combustion on 

 organic vegetable matter. The products of each of these processes of dissolution 

 he claimed as the essential elements for promoting the growth of vegetation, arguing 

 that that which had already been produced by vegetation, could again be applied, by 

 the processes above described, to the same purpose, after separation into its original 

 constituent parts. Founded upon this principle, he then described the mode adopted 

 by Mr. Daniell of Tiverton, in taking advantage of this principle in the laws of vege- 

 tation, and by an application of the sources of fermentation and combustion to the 

 soil, under circumstances of minute mechanical subdivision, and in a state fitted for 

 solubility, to promote the fertility of the country, and the growth of the most useful 

 and most needed plants. The long-continued experiments under which this had been 

 accomplished were detailed to the Section, showing that the result was highly fa- 

 vourable ; while, on the other hand, it was argued, step by step, from the nature of 

 the elementary substances required, and the capability of these being afforded in the 

 required way, that the philosophical reasons for such success were as simple and ob- 

 vious as the facts were plain. 



On Liebigs Theory of Fallow Crops. By the Rev. J. B. Reade, M.A., 



F.R.S. 



The fallow time, as Liebig observes, is that period of culture during which land is 

 exposed to a progressive disintegration by means of the influence of the atmosphere, 

 for the purpose of rendering a certain quantity of alkalies capable of being appro- 

 priated by plants. Careful tillage increases and accelerates this disintegration, and 



