SECTION IV: VAR. MARITIMA 277 



It would be unsafe to suppose that is the only story of the intro- 

 duction of Sea Island cotton (or perhaps rather, to affirm that this 

 was the original stock from which in time that cotton was evolved), 

 but it is highly instructive, so far as it goes. The seeds came from 

 Pernambuco, and there is little or nothing in the story to justify the 

 belief that the plant had been first acclimatised in Jamaica. More- 

 over, what particular plant had been procured from Pernambuco we 

 have no means of judging, but the Brazilian origin is strongly sug- 

 gestive of G. brasiliense a species which from other circumstances 

 I am disposed to regard as closely connected with the history of Or, 

 barbadense, var. maritima. 



By way of illustrating the commonly accepted view it may be 

 mentioned that the ' A. B. C. of Cotton Planting ' a booklet issued by 

 the Imperial Department of Agriculture in the West Indies (No. 31 of 

 1904) asks the question : What is Sea Island cotton ? and answers it as 

 a cotton originally obtained from the West Indies, but improved by 

 cultivation in America. As illustrative of the hazy impressions occa- Hazy im- 

 sionally accepted as satisfactory, the following may be cited : Spix pre 

 and Martius (' Travels, &c.') say : ' The Sea Island was introduced from 

 the Bahamas, or more remotely from Anguilla one of the West 

 India Islands. The New Orleans does not differ specifically from 

 the Sea Island cotton, and is admitted by the planters of the South 

 to be identical with the plant of Mexico, whence they procure their 

 finest seeds. It is conjectured that it was from the neighbouring 

 coast of Mexico that the indigenous cotton of that country was intro- 

 duced into the West Indies, and thence taken to the Island of 

 Bourbon. Hence we may account for G. barbadense being identical 

 in species with the New Orleans and Sea Island as well as with the 

 Bourbon Cotton.' 



Mr. Lyster H. Dewey, in a communication (dated August 23, 1906) Actual 

 that accompanied the admirable set of botanical samples of the cot- 

 tons grown in the United States of America, sent for my inspection, 

 observes : ' The Sea Island type mentioned in my former letter is 

 cultivated on James and Edisto Islands and the adjacent mainland 

 of the coast of South Carolina, and to a slight extent along the coast 

 of North Carolina as far north as Elizabeth City, and across the 

 interior of Southern Georgia and Northern Florida. Very little 

 cotton is cultivated in the coast region of Georgia and Florida, and 

 none at all in the latter State, except in the northern countries, where 

 the conditions are exactly the same as those in Southern Georgia. 



