272 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Origin of apparently while regarding both as yielding the so-called Sea Island 

 ?^ a , staple, did not consider them as botanically the same species. He 

 says they were with much difficulty introduced into N. America owing 

 to the shortness of the summer season. ' The former (Sea Island), in- 

 deed, could not be established until the fortunate occurrence of a very 

 mild winter permitted the roots to live through it and produce an early 

 crop of fresh shoots in the spring. These bore and ripened a crop, 

 the seed of which was found sufficiently hardy to resist the cold of 

 spring, and matured a crop of excellent cotton in the course of the 

 succeeding autumn. The produce was a variety intermediate between 

 Pernam- the Pernambuco and Barbados or Bourbon cottons ; having the long 

 g Ut ? x staple, smooth black seed, and 5-lobed leaves of the former, with the 

 dos. free or detached seed of the latter. The peculiar and very superior 



qualities of this kind are attributed to its growing in a soil highly 

 calcareous, and strongly impregnated with salt, aided by the influence 

 of a saline atmosphere.' Then, adds Wight, ' all attempts to intro- 

 duce this kind into India have so far failed.' 

 Introduc- Although it is known that much intimacy existed between the 



S?JS2 early West Indian and American colonists, still the first direct 

 tne otates. 



mention of the conveyance of cotton seed from these islands to the 

 mainland occurs in the year 1785. I have been told (though I have 

 not been able to confirm the statement) that there is an older record 

 regarding Charleston, in which mention is made of cotton being sent 

 from the West Indies to America in 1714. It is recorded of 1785, 

 however, that what appears to have been Sea Island cotton was first 

 produced in Georgia from seed obtained from the Bahamas. In 1789 

 we next read of cotton seed, possibly Sea Island, having been sent 

 from Jamaica to Georgia, but there seems to be some confusion, 

 since it is e,i the same time spoken of as ' Pernambuco cotton.' This 

 much, however, appears fairly certain namely, that the cotton first 

 exported from the United States went from Virginia and N. Caro- 

 lina, and was accordingly not likely to be anything but Levant 

 cotton it certainly could not have been Sea Island so that it is 

 perhaps safe to infer that the United States of America obtained 

 their stock of the Sea Island plant very possibly through the West 

 Indies, and that too so late as the middle of the eighteenth century. 

 Surinam There would seem no doubt, however, that South America and 



cotton. fa e Antilles were growing a superior cotton closely akin to, if not 

 identical with, much of the so-called Sea Island cotton of to-day, 

 long anterior to its introduction into the United States. Surinam 



