SECTION II: DACCA COTTON 103 



seems to have yielded several very superior staples. There would 

 appear little doubt that the red-stemmed plant, described and 

 figured by Koxburgh as the much-talked-of ' Dacca Cotton,' and 

 which Todaro named G. Boxburghii, is in reality but a special race 

 of neglecta produced, and possibly to-day still grown, within a very 

 restricted tract of Eastern Bengal. 



I have thought, therefore, it might serve a useful purpose to Box- 

 reproduce here (by the three-colour process of photography) Box- 

 burgh's original plate of the ' Dacca Cotton ' plant. (See Plate No. 12.) 

 This was published by Eoxburgh in his 'Plants of the Coast of 

 Coromandel,' but the reproduction is from the Kew copy of the 

 original MS. coloured drawing. I am enabled to give this, through 

 the kind permission of the Director of the Eoyal Botanic Gardens, 

 Kew, and although the reproduction is a little less than one-half the 

 original (which is presumably life-size), it conveys a full conception 

 of the structural peculiarities of the plant and manifests a form 

 which, if it exists at all, can hardly be said to be a regular crop in 

 India it is in fact unknown to me. 



Early Opinions. In view of the efforts at present being made to 

 develop the industry of cotton cultivation in Bengal, it seems 

 desirable that the opinions of the earliest writers on the Dacca 

 cotton should be briefly indicated. 



Luillier (' Nouv. Voy. aux Grandes Ind.' 1726, p. 51), speaks of Two crops, 



1 7ftft 



large quantities of cotton in Bengal that grow to the height of three 

 feet. Mr. Bebb, Commercial Resident of Dacca, furnished a reply to 

 an inquiry made by the East India Company, and that is one of 

 the earliest authentic accounts of the Dacca race (in fact of Bengal) 

 cotton. His report is dated 1788, and speaks of the staple as ' the 

 finest cotton in the world, producing cloth of astonishing beauty and 

 fineness.' He tells us that the plant was an annual, of which two 

 crops were obtained in the year, in April and again in September. 

 The first was the most esteemed and fetched the highest price, but 

 was liable to failure from long drought or from violent storms, 

 though moderate showers were highly beneficial. Eohr and many 

 other writers allude to their experiments with the cultivation of 

 muslin cottons, so that there is no doubt the plant was carried to the 

 West Indies and to both South and North America fully a century 

 ago, perhaps as an outcome of the Company's investigations. 



Dr. Roxburgh, who was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Box- ^ 

 Botanic Gardens of Calcutta in 1793, early gave attention to this urg 



