The Microscope. 



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Vol. VII. DETROIT, JULY, 1887. No. 7 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS 



THE IVnCROSCOPICAL STRUCTURE OF THE COTTON 



SEED, 



AND OF THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS OBTAINED THEREFROM. 

 C. M. VORCE. 



^ I HE cotton plant, which is one of the most important produc- 

 -■- tions of the United States, is of the natural order MalvacecS, 

 and genus Gossypium. Three species are recognized as being 

 native to this country, viz: G. Herbaceum, the so-called "upland 

 cotton," an annual ; G. hirsutum, the shrub cotton, which produces 

 several successive crops on the same plant, and G. Arboreum, the 

 tree cotton, a perennial of tree form, reaching the height of twenty 

 feet or more. The Sea Island cotton, G. Barbadensis, is an intro- 

 duced species said to be indistinguishable, botanically, from the East 

 Indian cotton. Of the above species only the G. herbaceum and 

 G. Barbadense are cultivated in the United States, and the G. 

 herbaceum is more extensively cultivated than all others combined, 

 throughout the world. It was to the use of this species that the 

 former boast of the Southern planters that "" Cotton is King," was 

 due. This saying was, for a long time, proverbial, but later it was 

 admitted, even by the planters, that the sceptre of King Cotton had 

 been wi'ested from him, and that, to whomsoever else it might 

 belong, it would never be restored to or revested in cotton. Within 

 a comparatively few years, however, events have so shaped them- 

 selves as to foreshadow the restoration of the royal purple to King 

 Cotton, and these will be noticed in the conclusion of this paper. 



