’ 
On the Persian Cotton Tree. 219 
the next year. Lastly, watering the young plants 
with a mixture of wood-ashes and water, in cer- 
tain situations, is sometimes necessary to guard them 
from destructive worms. 
The Russians have cultivated the same species of 
Persian Cotton in the government of Caucasus, and 
rear enough of it to serve their own national manu- 
factures, which are not as yet either numerous or 
considerable; but on the Terck, at the foot of the 
Caucasus, where it is reared, they do not sow till the 
middle of May, lest a late spring-frost, which is 
sometimes felt in those parts, should destroy the 
hopes of the planter.—With that one exception, 
the Russians strictly observe the Persian mode of 
cultivation. 
There is a species of silky cotton much cultivat- 
ed at present in Germany, which possibly may me- 
rit the attention of Portugal for their plantations in 
America. It is the Alclepias syriaca of Linneus, 
and affords so fine a species of cotton (if I may so 
name it) that fabrics have been erected in Saxony 
where stuffs are made of it, which rival in lustre, &c. 
the true animal silk. But this new vegetable silk has 
circumstances attending it that seem to recommend 
its cultivation in some of the American colonies 
and islands, First, because it is originally the na- 
tive of a hot climate, as Linnzus’s specific name in- 
dicates ; and, of course, itis likely to be in its greatest » 
