t EXPERIMEN'TS IN THE HYBRIDISING OF INDIAN COTTONS. 
have anticipated me im the publishing of similar conclusions, 
with other varieties of Egyptian and Indian cottons, but these are 
based, as far as the published results show, on two generations 
only and on a much smaller number of plants. 
The practical outcome of these observations appears to be 
that the cross-breeding of these varieties could be carried on with 
almost mathematical precision, and if, as seems likely, these 
principles apply to other characters as well, one might expect 
to obtain any desired type in a very few years. 
As I could obtain no information as to what crosses would 
succeed, or would be likely to give useful or interesting results, 
I started with a few different kinds, the seed of which, from the 
Government farms at Bellary and elsewhere, was kindly given me 
by. Mr. Charles Benson, at that time Deputy Director of 
Agriculture, Madras. They consisted of a red-flowered tree- 
cotton named Karehath, Jari and Baw of the Central Provinces, 
Jowar (fuzzy and naked seeded) Northerns Bilathathi and 
Yerrapathi of this Presidency. In addition, there were two races 
of American upland cottons, a naturalised “ Kidney” tree- 
cotton, and another tree-cotton, related apparently to G. 
peruvianum. Hybrids were readily obtained by crossing these 
exotics iter se. From one of the American uplands (W. H. 
Cooke) and the tree-cotton (G. peruvianum were obtained a number 
of bushy plants very like some I saw grown from seed supplied by 
Messrs. Shaw, Wallace & Co. of Calcutta, as anew variety. The 
lint was long and silky and the plants were intermediate in size 
between the two parents, those from seed of bolls on the tree 
being slightly larger than those by the reverse cross but other- 
wise very similar. 
As my concern was with the indigenous races, these and the 
other exotic hybrids were allowed to die out, but in the twenty 
plants of which 1 have notes, the red colour of the leaf stalks, and 
the pink spot at the base of the leaf-blade,*—characters belonging 
to the herbaceous parent, and the pink spot at the base of the 
* Cf. also Balls (8). 
