GOSSYPIUM 



VAR. ROSEA 



Varadi 



THE COTTON PLANT 



Early 

 Records. 



Restricted 

 Botanical 

 View. 



Races. 



Dacca 

 Cotton. 



Garo 

 Cotton. 



Varadi 

 Cotton. 



throughout Bengal, Assam and the United Provinces, less abundant in South 

 India and Burma, distributed by cultivation to Africa, the West Indies and China. 

 The names given to this plant, and the traditions of the people of India regarding 

 it, suggest its having originated in the drier tracts of the Gangetic basin. Re- 

 cently it has been carried to all the regions where the perennial cottons (pre- 

 sumably of G. xanktog origin) formerly prevailed, and the craving for a short 

 cheap staple has even seen its attempted cultivation in Gujarat and Kathiawar 

 the home of what may be characterised as the long-staple cottons of India. 



In point of historic sequence, the earliest botanic reference to this plant would 

 appear to be that in the Hortua Malabaricus (1686), thus associating it with India, 

 the headquarters of its present-day cultivation. Rheede speaks of it as a shrub 

 10 to 12 feet in height, found growing in sandy places. But as if to remove 

 the possibility of its being supposed to be Cf. nvboreum, he carefully describes 

 the long, narrow segments of its smooth, soft leaves, and then adds that the 

 flowers are pale yellow with purple claws and the seeds have a white to grey fuzz. 

 Buchanan-Hamilton, who wrote a commentary on Rheede's great work in 1822, 

 and had himself visited Malabar, observed that so far as he had seen in that 

 district, cotton was raised (as Rheede had described it) by the Natives in the 

 form of small trees planted in corners of gardens and not in fields, nor was the 

 cotton for sale. But Buchanan-Hamilton, unfortunately, had come to the 

 conclusion that all the cultivated cottons of India were mere races that differ 

 from each other vastly less than do the varieties of the cabbage. Ho thus did 

 not allow himself to realise that even accepting so restricted a botanical view, 

 they might still be of great agricultural and commercial value, and therefore 

 worthy of separate recognition. Accordingly, he omitted to add that the cotton 

 of Malabar might be described as a perennial state of the self -same plant to which 

 he had at one time assigned the name G. virideacens. On the other hand, Rox- 

 burgh, commenting on Rheede's Cudu pariti, observed that he could not bring 

 himself to believe that it was . nrborenm. The fact that it was a small tree 

 and thus a perennial precluded him apparently from assigning it its true position 

 along with the " Bengal and Dacca Cottons," to which he most unfortunately 

 gave the name G. herbaceum. 



The cultivated races of this plant known to exist in India are very numerous 

 and much diversified as to yield and merit of staple. Perhaps the most significant 

 feature of the story of this variety is that while to-day it affords the most inferior 

 grades of Asiatic cottons, at one time it seems to have yielded several superior 

 staples. Of these may be mentioned the much-talked-of Dacca cotton. 



Var. assamica, Watt, I.e. 108-12, t. 13 ; Darrah, Note on Cotton in Assam, 

 1885 ; Middleton, Agri. Ledg., 1895, No. 8, 19-20 ; G. cernuum, Todaro, Oss. 

 Sp. di Col., 1863, 31 ; Garo Hills Cotton, kil or borkapah (large cotton), khungi 

 deva, etc. 



This very remarkable cotton might fairly well be described as an extreme 

 form of uar. tiegifcta. It is raised as an annual crop by the people of the Garo 

 hills, who use it in the fabrication of a peculiar kind of blanket, which is formed 

 by rows of tufts of the wool placed by hand across the fabric and bound in that 

 position by the weft being forced home on each such row. Whether this peculiar 

 textile suggested the selection that has resulted in the production of the Garo hills 

 long-boll cotton, it is difficult to say. Certain it is that when carried to other parts 

 of India the plant throws off most of the characteristic features above indicated 

 and becomes a large form of uar. tiegiecta, or perhaps rather of uar. roaea. 



Var. rosea, Watt, I.e. 112-4, t. 14; G. roseum, Tod., Relax. Cult, dei Cot., 

 164-8, t. 2; Nurdki Cotton, Middleton, I.e. 11 ; G. roseum, Gammie, 2nd. Cot., 

 1905. The varadi, katil belati, nimari, bangai (Sylhet), and nurdki (Bengal). 



This is in reality but an extreme form of a. m-bor^um, Linn., uar. ut-giccta. 

 When shown a typical example of this plant by itself (such as Wight's No. 213 

 from Coimbatore) there is little difficulty in admitting it to a varietal position. 

 But when the study is extended to the cotton fields it is found that the tran- 

 sition into the ordinary form of uar. negifctn is so gradual and continuous that 

 it is impossible to separate the two. In fact, the so-called acclimatised Garo 

 hills cotton of Nagpur might even more accurately be described as the present 

 plant. The cultivators of India, being familiar with the normal condition, had 

 brought to them this robust and hardy plant with its small pink-coloured 

 flowers and large bolls, and they at once gave it distinctive names, such as those 

 mentioned above. It is the most inferior of all Indian cottons, though the most 

 prolific yielder. 



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