310 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



material extent owing to its colour and the small yield. Lastly it 

 may be added that several unsuccessful attempts have been made 

 to acclimatise Sea Island cotton. 



Possible The method of cultivation pursued appears to be very crude and 



not materially improved for the past couple of centuries or more. 

 Auguste de Saint-Hilaire wrote ' All the planter has to do is to burn 

 off the woods and plant his seed at the proper season.' This, com- 

 ments Branner, is the whole story of the cotton cultivation of Brazil. 

 Schumann, the most trustworthy botanical writer regarding Brazil 

 to-day, says that G. brasiliense is cultivated especially in Peru and 

 in Central America, the islands of the Antilles, and more rarely 

 in the warm regions of the New World. It may perhaps be here 

 added, however, that it seems highly probable that G. peruviamm 

 and G. microcarpum are all included by Schumann under 

 G. brasiliense. 



Climate. Mell (' Climatology of Cotton Districts of the Globe,' p. 67) speaks 



of the climate of Pernambuco as exceedingly moist, 109 inches of rain 

 falling a year. It rains every month, the chief fall being from March 

 to July and the lowest from September to December. The maximum 

 temperature (mean annual) is 84'2, the highest being in October to 

 March. The mean lowest temperature is 71'10 and the coldest 

 months are May to July. 



The contrast between that condition (that of the coast tracts in 

 general doubtless) with the climate of the more interior regions, must 

 have been abundantly exemplified by the numerous quotations 

 already submitted to the reader. But it is desirable to invite his 

 attention to the still more strikingly different state of affairs exem- 

 plified (p. 288) in connection with the cultivation of Sea Island 

 cotton, in order to show how very different the coast tracts of North 

 America (the Sea Island country proper) are from those of South 

 America (the kidney cotton country). 



In his report of investigations into the weevil -resisting adaptations 

 of the cottons of Guatemala, Cook makes frequent mention of kidney 

 cotton as met with occasionally in the gardens of the Indians, but 



Immunity not as a field crop. The union of the seeds he regards as a special 

 protective adaptation which secures almost immunity to weevil. 

 But to carry this study to modern times it may be observed that in 

 Guatemala, where G. brasiliense might be viewed as indigenous and 

 is moreover held to be immune to weevil, it is not the cotton most 

 extensively and systematically grown for the supply of staple. (See 

 Cook, I.e.) 



