336 WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



group of American cottons with fuzzy seeds and free bracteoles. 

 And I therefore desire to repeat that there would seem every ground 

 for supposing that that imperfectly known group of fuzzy-seeded 

 cottons may have exercised a great influence on many of the 

 fuzzy-seeded cultivated cottons of the New World (see pp. 166-7). 

 Trevor The next series of direct experiments in cotton hybridisation 



experi- ^ a ^ nee ^ De mentioned was conducted nearly a century later than 

 ments. Eohr's investigations (in other words some 35 years ago) by Major 

 Trevor Clarke of Welton Place, Daventry, England. Burbidge 

 (' Propag. and Improv. of Cult. PL', p. 388) alludes very briefly to 

 Clarke's opinions and experiments without suggesting verification 

 as being likely to be necessary. And yet in certain directions 

 Clarke's conclusions are distinctly conjectural, if not questionable. 

 He, for example, arrived at an emphatic opinion, namely, that it was 

 not possible to cross the cottons of the Old World with those of the 

 New, but that all the species of either hemisphere might be crossed 

 among themselves. That opinion became universally accepted, and 

 for many years restrained, if it did not check, the experiments that 

 might otherwise, and with great advantage, have been conducted. 

 (See pp. Ill, 113, 133-4, 165 and 190.) 



The results obtained by Clarke were commumicated to Mr. 

 H. Eivett-Carnac, then Cotton Commissioner of India, and his cross- 

 bred stocks were supplied to the Indian Department for experimental 

 cultivation. He tells us for example of having crossed the ' Assam 

 Hill Cotton ' with Hinganghat and sent the seed to Nagpur and 

 Akola for cultivation (see p. 113). So again he says, ' My most 

 interesting cross, viz. Hinganghat by G. arboreum (i.e. nurmah), 

 is thriving and will soon flower, showing that it has secured the 

 early flowering habit of the Hinganghat parent ; of it I send you 

 one or two seeds. I had only one small boll come to perfection.' 

 So also he experimented apparently with wagria cotton, which 

 he describes as ' the broad-leaved type in the close pods and strong 

 bulky staple. I hope this will produce sorts with more expanded 

 pods and finer staple combined with length.' In another place 

 Wagria (p. 152) I have suggested that the wagria cotton of Gujarat is itself 

 a hybrid of deshi Broach and bani. I had made that suggestion 

 before reading the above passage in Major Trevor Clarke's report. 

 So again Clarke observes, ' The only Indian cottons that at all come 

 up to the bulky properties of the Uplands, according to my ex- 

 perience, are produced by the breed of which the bolls are dumpy 



