102 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COITONS 



Survive 

 for cen- 

 turies. 



Recessive 

 forms. 



Japanese 

 stock. 



Superior 

 staple. 



it is very significant that with the older botanical authors, down to 

 and including Linnaeus, most of the cultivated cottons of the world 

 have been given the habitat of ' America.' 



But with reference to the survival of this presumably Indian 

 plant in America and elsewhere (after its cultivation had been 

 abandoned), it maybe observed that, once a particular species or race 

 of cotton had been introduced into a favourable cotton-growing 

 country, even though its regular cultivation might chance to be 

 discontinued, it would be no great stretch of imagination to believe 

 that a specially hardy stock, such as the present plant, might 

 survive for centuries. It might appear and disappear, here and 

 there, according as it aroused attention (and was reinvestigated) or 

 caused a fresh effort to be put forth for its eradication. This is the 

 history of many weeds of cultivated land the world over. Some 

 such explanation of the sudden appearance of new stocks is prefer- 

 able to the alternative theory that they had originated sporadically 

 from remotely different plants. But again if belief be put in the 

 value of crossing, in the production of races of cotton, the well- 

 known behaviour of recessive splitting forms might readily account 

 for the seeming spontaneous origin of widely different plants. The 

 fact, however, remains that G. arboreum var. neglecta has been 

 repeatedly recorded as met with in the United States of America, 

 and in the examples seen by me the plants in question could 

 not possibly be separated botanically from the corresponding Indian 

 stocks. 



In this connection also it may be added that through the 

 generous co-operation of Mr. B. T. Galloway, chief of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry in the United States of America, I have been able to 

 examine herbarium specimens of the cotton plants at present being 

 experimentally cultivated at the Testing Garden, Washington. 

 Among these is one described as ' Japanese Wool,' raised from seed 

 procured from Japan. This is almost in every respect identical with 

 the Bengal plant already fully detailed. The young leaves, how- 

 ever, are perhaps a little more softly pilose than is customary in 

 India, and the veins below manifest very frequently three in place of 

 only one gland. It is thus very possibly slightly hybridised with 

 G. Nanking. 



Race Dacca Cotton. Perhaps the most significant feature of 

 the story of var. neglecta is the circumstance that, while it to-day 

 affords the most inferior grades of Asiatic cottons, at one time it 



