SECTION II: ASSAM COTTON 111 



history of these hybrids (or at least of certain of the early stocks) 

 would appear to exist in an official correspondence which I have had 

 the pleasure to inspect, through the kindness of the Director of Kew. 



In a letter dated May 7, 1870, Major Trevor Clarke addressed the Trevor 



ClErkfi's 

 Cotton Commissioner of India on the recent success he had attained hybrid. 



in England in crossing ' Assam Hill Cotton ' with Hinganghat. 

 Clarke supplied seed of that hybrid to Mr. H. Eivett-Carnac, and we 

 subsequently learn this was distributed for experimental cultivation 

 to Akola and Nagpur, and doubtless also to Saharanpur, since that 

 botanical garden was in close touch with most at least of the cotton 

 experiments of the period mentioned. Moreover, recently, the late 

 Mr. Gollan procured bani cotton from Akola and Garo Hills cotton 

 from Assam, and grew them side by side at Saharanpur. He 

 furnished me with samples of these for determination in 1904, and it 

 was then found that he had thus re-performed Major Clarke's 

 experiments in the production of hybrids between the plants named. 

 The so-called acclimatised kil cotton of Nagpur might thus easily Nagpur 

 enough be a survival of the hybrid stock mentioned which had been 

 possibly subsequently again hybridised with var. neglecta. The 

 samples of the Nagpur kil in my possession are certainly not typical 

 G. arboreum, var. assamica, as defined by me, but stand almost inter- 

 mediate to that plant and the variety that I accept as being Todaro's 

 G. roseum, a form very near to var. neglecta. In fact, the varadi 

 cottons of India are mostly hybrids of that nature. 



This suggestion seems worthy of direct verification by fresh cross- Gammie's 

 breeding experiments with var. assamica into var. Bani. It may be ^ 

 recollected that Professor Gammie, of Poona, crossed G. roseum 

 (varadi) with G. hirsutum (see his ' Note on Classification of Indian 

 Cottons and Cross-breeding Experiments at the Poona Farm, 1901-3,' 

 p. 15) and obtained a plant of which he remarks : ' This cross is 

 exactly Bani of the Central Provinces, which may be accepted as 

 proved to be of cross origin. No other cross resembled any known 

 (to me) form of Indian cotton.' Gammie's experiment is highly 

 interesting, but I fear may have to be given a totally different Dissimilar 

 explanation. It is universally accepted by hybridists that when g ametes ' 

 dissimilar gametes are crossed the resultant is the appearance of an 

 ancient form the condition called by Darwin a 'reversion.' In 

 Gammie's so-called cross, therefore, we have simply the re- 

 appearance of the more ancient bani stock, present (as above 

 indicated) in the G. roseum ancestor, and forced into being through 



