IMPROVEMENT OF STOCKS 333 



to-day, are themselves to a large extent hybrid stocks. It does not 

 follow, however, that all hybrids that can be produced will be fertile, 

 still less that they can be invariably again further hybridised with fresh 

 influences, according to the fancy of the operator. To the neglect of 

 these considerations may in part be due the failures that have been 

 recorded. 



In another place (see p. 193) I have shown that one of the Natural or 

 systems, often pursued by cotton-growers in the United States, is to hybrids.* 1 

 plant in close proximity two or more forms of cotton that they wish 

 to hybridise, and to trust to insects and perhaps also birds to ac- 

 complish naturally the transference of the pollen. In this way several 

 of the special stocks now in use have been produced. These may be 

 characterised as accidental in contra-distinction to those produced 

 by direct experiment, which might be spoken of as intentional 

 hybrids and crosses. 



There are numerous records of direct or intentional hybridisation. Direct 



Perhaps the first person who investigated the possibility of im- 

 proving the quality and quantity of cotton by means of hybridisation 

 was the Danish colonist Eohr, who resided for some years in Sainte 

 Croix (Santa Cruz). About 1786-1790 he was engaged on a special Bohr's 

 inquiry, and published his wonderfully interesting little book (' Observ. ^ 

 sur la Cult, du Coton ' German edition 1790, French 1807 ') which 

 gives the results of his investigations and experiences as a cotton 

 planter. After describing some 30 species and cultivated races, he 

 devotes a considerable portion of his work to the methods he pursued 

 in selection and hybridisation of stock. He urges again and again 

 for purity and uniformity in the plantation. (See pp. 200, 262-4.) 



Eohr had observed that fecundation ordinarily takes place in Fuzzy 

 Gossypium before the flower has fully expanded. He had noted that 

 certain plants gave a fine silky cotton but scanty as to quantity, seed, 

 while others yielded a large amount of coarse woolly floss. He ac- 

 cordingly gave a hypothetical case of improvement when he suggested 

 the crossing of two such plants as his ' Curasao ' (Curagao Island) 

 (Or. punctatum, var. Jamaica, of. p. 170, 172) with ' Carthagena cotton ' 

 (a form doubtless of G. barbadense.) He does not say that he had 

 actually produced such a hybrid, but speaks of it as an ordinary every- 

 day cross that anyone could accomplish. The stamens from an 

 unopened flower of Curagao should be removed, he says, and its pistil 

 at once impregnated with the anthers taken from a similar flower of 

 Carthagena cotton. This would be a cross between a fuzzy-seeded 



