INTRODUCTION 3 



lavish expenditure of money and time on the off-chance of a happy 

 accident. It is a lottery in which the chances are against the 

 adventurer. One might instance numerous failures, in almost every 

 cotton-growing country in the world, due primarily to neglect of 

 the first principles that should guide operations. Highly-paid 

 administrative officials Cotton Commissioners have been (and are 

 still being) placed in charge of what must of necessity be scientific 

 and expert investigations. Vexatious legislation, lavish expenditure 

 of money, the publication of unscientific and useless reports, dis- 

 appointment and failure are the not unnatural consequences. This 

 is the record of practically every country, except perhaps the United Scientific 

 States of America. And success even in the States has, until quite selectlon< 

 recently, been due to two circumstances the intelligent cultivation 

 of colonists and the highly suitable environment of the country of 

 their adoption. Kecently, however, scientific selection and improve- 

 ment of stock has begun to place the industry of the States on a 

 safer foundation, and in consequence the publications of the Bureau 

 of Plant Industry have for some years past been replete with 

 practical results. 



To work intelligently, it is essential that some conception of the 

 botany of the plant intended to be operated on should, in every 

 instance, be made the basis of the experiments conducted. I have 

 accordingly endeavoured to exhibit, all through my botanical disser- 

 tations, the practical bearings of importance. A collective statement 

 of cotton cultivation the methods pursued and the results obtained 

 in the world would be quite meaningless if made regardless of the 

 species or races of plants grown and of the countries of production, 

 more especially the climatic conditions that there prevail. It is on 

 this account that I have dispersed such details as I have thought 

 desirable to furnish under the names of the species concerned. 



To the botanist I would say that a serious error has run through 

 practically all that has been written on Gossypium. The species Names of 

 first made known were cultivated plants. These were named by c ultivated 

 Linnaeus as a result of the correlation of the publications of his 

 predecessors, on the basis of his binominal system. Since then it 

 has far too often been assumed that no wild species of Gossypium 

 existed anywhere, and accordingly, as specimens of such were dis- 

 covered here and there, they were named, on the standards of the 

 five or six Linnaean types, the assumption being apparently accepted 

 that there could be no other species. 



B2 



