SECTION III: GEORGIA UPLAND COTTON 195 



Mr. Dewey, in one of his most valuable letters accompanying the 

 samples sent for my inspection in connection with this publication, 

 gives the following highly instructive sketch of the origin of the 

 cotton cultivation of the United States and of the present species 

 more especially. 



' The term " Sea Island " is applied primarily to the form of American 

 G. barbadense, cultivated on James and Edisto Islands and the c 

 adjacent mainland along the coast of South Carolina. The most 

 highly developed Sea Island cotton is grown on the two islands 

 mentioned, where it has been bred up by many years of careful 

 selection. Seed from these islands has been taken inland, where it 

 has been found more profitable to cultivate Sea Island than Upland 

 varieties, and now through Northern Florida and across the southern 

 part of Georgia south of Eastman, Sea Island is grown almost ex- 

 clusively. This is sometimes called Georgia Sea Island, and occa- 

 sionally the term is shortened to merely Georgia cotton. The latter 

 term, however, is somewhat misleading, as the name Georgia cotton 

 is also applied to the short-staple Georgia Upland, which is obtained 

 from "King," " Drak," " Peterkin," "Bussell's Big Boll," "Jones's g jL 

 Improved," " Truitt," and other varieties, all belonging to the species 

 G. hirsutum,. In the stiff clay soils and redlands of the northern part 

 of Georgia a cotton.of a rather peculiar wiry staple is produced which 

 is somewhat typical of the region, differing in this respect from the 

 finer and more flexible fibre produced in the rich black soils of the 

 delta region of Mississippi and Louisiana. The cottons of these 

 regions, even when grown from seed of exactly the same origin as 

 that of Georgia and eastern Alabama, are usually somewhat longer 

 in staple, and known as delta, Louisiana or New Orleans cottons. 

 The name ' short staple ' is applied to all American Upland, dis- 



tinguishing it from the Sea Island and long-staple Upland. Com- 

 paratively small quantities of long-staple Upland cotton are produced, 

 principally in the delta region and in Arkansas and Texas. In 

 some instances this long staple is claimed to be the result of crossing 

 American Upland with Sea Island, but in all cases it is developed by 

 persistent careful selection. The most extensively grown long-staple 

 Upland cottons are " Cook's," " Allen's," and " Griffin's." You 

 have doubtless noticed that American botanists have in nearly all 

 instances referred the American Upland cotton to the species 

 G. herbaceum. So far as we can learn, the first cotton cultivated in 

 this country was grown in south-eastern Virginia by the early 



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