SECTION IV: G. BRASILIENSE 305 



urges that the tracts indicated are pre-eminently cotton countries, as 

 they are not subject to extreme climatic disturbances. The rain falls 

 on the mountains and is distributed to the cotton fields by rivers and 

 canals. He gives special attention to lower Peru, where, he says, the Peru, 

 inhabitants are noted for the care and attention they devote to the 

 crop. They have improved their own cottons instead of having Cotton 

 sought to acclimatise the cottons of other countries, as has been the JJ^nt v< 

 case with the regions bordering the sea coast. 



Bohr (' Observ. sur la Cult, du Cot.,' 1807, p. 33) tells us that accord- 

 ing to M. Jean Kyan, the success in Sainte-Croix, with Guiana cotton, Guiana, 

 was owing to the long dry season during the flowering and fruiting 

 period. A shower of even 12 hours does no harm, but in Guiana, 

 when the rain sets in, it may rain for several weeks on end, thus 

 aborting the crop completely, and an abnormally early rainy season 

 may render the cultivation unprofitable. He further observes that Early 

 each plant occupies from 10 to 12 feet, when grown on suitable 

 soil and in a favourable locality. Eohr then adds that the true 

 Brazilian cotton was regarded as of higher value than the Guiana, 

 but that it had not been so successfully grown in Sainte-Croix as the 

 former kind. The difference, he says, is in the seeds, Guiana has 

 from 9 to 12, Brazilian only 7-9 in the kidneyed mass. 



Eohr, who in fact wrote a highly instructive little book, already Special 

 frequently placed under contribution, in connection with other species, 

 tells of his having visited most of the West India Islands, as also the 

 mainland of South America (in company with a Dr. P. Dunkan), in 

 order to study the species of cotton and the methods of cultivation 

 pursued. He refers to the special stocks of the present species the 

 one procured from Guiana and the other from Brazil. Of the former 

 (Z.c. pp. 31-39) there were, he continues, several races denominated 

 Cayenne, Surinam, Demerara, &c. ' It is of this cotton, and no 

 other that travellers speak regarding these countries,' such, for 

 example, as M. de Prefontaine ('Maison rustique,' 1763) and M. 

 Bajon (' Mem. pour servir a 1'historie de Cayenne et de la Guiane 

 Fran$aise," 1777). From Eohr's most instructive account of this 

 and the Brazilian plant, we are justified in believing that these 

 constituted the chief crop of the cotton planters of the West Indies, Chief crop 

 during the closing decades of the eighteenth and the beginning of the 

 nineteenth centuries. Forms of G. barbadense (G. vitifolium) were 

 also to be seen in these plantations, as also of G. purpurascens, but 

 there would appear no doubt that prior to the production of the 



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