SECTION III : G. PERUVIANUM 225 



in the West Indies, the question is asked ' What is Egyptian cotton ? ' Results in 



It is answered by the supposition that it may be Sea Island altered ^j* g 



by cultivation in Egypt. I believe that view to be a mistake, 



though I regard Sea Island as itself (like the Egyptian) a hybrid, but 



one in which it seems possible G. brasiliense may have been one 



of the ancestors. Acclimatised and hybrid forms of Sea Island exist 



in Egypt, but I believe that species has never shown any indication 



of modifying into Egyptian, and it certainly has never been a success 



in Egypt. But the reverse is the case in the West Indies, where 



Sea Island is a great success and Egyptian apparently a failure. 



INDIA. Mr. Fred. Fletcher, shortly after his having joined the Attempts 

 Government of Bombay as Deputy Director of Agriculture, recom- m 

 mended that the attempt should be made to grow Egyptian cotton in 

 Sind. He pointed out that with the extension of perennial irrigation 

 it might be possible to sow that cotton as early as March if not even 

 in February, in place of May. The inundation caused by the rise of 

 the Indus does not take place till May, and the winter frost often 

 being severe, these two facts ordinarily limit the cotton cultivation 

 to a short-stapled, rapidly-growing cotton, that can be sown in 

 May and is off the fields by December. After some readjustments 

 of the dates for cleaning the canals, &c., it was arranged that 

 irrigation water might be supplied from February. By this arrange- 

 ment it was ascertained that ultimately half a million acres of land 

 might become available for Egyptian cotton. 



Experiments were started with ashmouni, mit afifi, jannovitch, 

 and abassi races, but it was soon ascertained that the abassi was 

 the most suited. Finally the land selected for a large cultivation 

 was at Mirpur Khas, and reviewing the results ultimately obtained 

 Mr. H. S. Lawrence, Director of Land Eecords and Agriculture, 

 Bombay, says, in his Keport, 1904-5 (p. 5), 'If the cultivation in the Sind Be- 

 coming year is equally successful the matter may be said to have 

 left the region of experiment, and an out-turn of not less than 

 100,000 bales may be expected in the course of a few years.' 

 Subsequent reports mention the fact that fairly large parcels of 

 Egyptian cotton grown in Sind have been sent to England and 

 fetched 9d. a pound, as against lOcZ. for the corresponding grade 

 from Egypt itself. The Sind experiment bids fair therefore to be 

 not only a great success, but to be the pattern of many other future 

 endeavours. Mr. Fletcher is of opinion, in fact, that with perennial 

 irrigation accomplished by a dam at Bukkur the potentialities of the 



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