THE COTTON PLANT 



Red- 

 coloured 

 Cotton. 



Pruning 

 Cotton. 



GOSSYPIUM 



VAR. NADAM 

 Coeonada 



ledge) that the special cultivated states to which ct-Xnnkiiiy may be referred 

 constitute definite varieties that can readily and invariably be separated from 

 each other. The point of importance is that within certain fairly well denned 

 areas there are commercially and agriculturally distinctive cottons that would 

 appear to be states or races of a. xn/iinu. A detailed acquaintance with the 

 cultivated cottons of Egypt, China, Japan, Siam, the Malaya, etc., will in the 

 future doubtless suggest varietal or racial groups, in amplification of the Indian 

 series here dealt with : 



Var. rubicunda, Watt, I.e. 126-8, tt. 17, 18; G. rubicunda, Roxb. MS. ; G. obtusi- 

 folium, Burkill (in part), Mem. Dept. Agri. Ind., i., No. 4. This was formerly a 

 much more important plant than it is to-day. It occurs occasionally here 

 and there over the hotter parts of India. Hove, who studied the Indian 

 cottons in the field during 1787, wrote of Cambay, on November 6, that the 

 cottons were then in full bjoom with scarlet flowers and quite another species 

 from the yellow-flowered bush grown at Diroll in Broach. " On my journey," 

 he continues, " to Kerwan in Cambay, for the space of sixteen miles, wherever 

 I cast my eye, I could see nothing else but cotton plantations. Where the soil 

 consisted of a heavy clay those districts were planted with the yellow sort, and 

 those which consisted of sand, or were situated higher from the adjacent ground, 

 were planted with the red species." He then gives particulars of the method of 

 propagation, more especially the pruning of the perennial plants. Pruning as 

 a system of improving staple is alluded to by many of the early travellers. At 

 Desberah in Broach, Hove was told, the red cotton was known as dyva nerma 

 capass. One of the most remarkable features of Hove's account of the Bombay 

 cotton cultivation, one hundred and twenty years ago, is the stress he lays upon 

 the necessity for free irrigation with yellow-flowered cotton, which in this respect 

 differs, he adds, materially from the red. 



It is significant that all the best examples of uar. ri6icnni in the Kew, 

 British Museum and Edinburgh herbaria appear to have been obtained from 

 South and West or North- West India. It might be described as a hybrid from 

 <'. \ <mking or . obtuatfoiiuiii . Its place seems to have been taken in Madras 

 and the Deccan, to a very large extent, and possibly quite recently, by the 

 yellow-flowered bani and nadam cottons. 



Var. himalayana, Watt, I.e. 124-6, t. 16. A herbaceous annual or biennial 

 yellow-flowered cultivated cotton. This is one of the chief forms grown along 

 the Himalaya, and on some of the lower hills of India proper. It is generally 

 called bagar or watni cotton. It seems probable that the Chinese and Japanese 

 plant yields a superior staple to any of its Indian representatives ; on this account, 

 and because the true <'. .\anhing has repeatedly been introduced into India (cf. 

 Roxburgh), it seems desirable to separate the Indian from the Chinese plant, 

 the Indian form, the leaves are large and broad, the lobes triangular acuminate, 

 and the base very often almost cordate, while the whole plant is frequently ver 

 hairy a departure from the type that possibly denotes hybridisation wit} 



.'. olttwiifolittiii. 



Var. Nadam, Watt, I.e. 128-31 ; Capas, Rumphius, Herb. Amb., iv., 33-7, t. 12 ; 

 Middleton, Agri. Ledg., 1895, No. 89, 8 ; G. indicum, Gammie, Ind. Cottons, 1905, 6, 

 pi. ix. In trade the cotton of this assemblage's often designated " Coeonada," 

 and besides nadam there are several other vernacular names that denote the series, 

 such as yerra (red) also paira, burada, etc. They are usually perennial, bushy 

 plants, with dark-green foliage and deep-red coloured stems. The chief staple 

 of Burma, the wa-gale, is an annual ; the wa-ni, according to Burkill, is a kakhi- 

 coloured wa-gale ; lastly, the wa-gyi is a perennial they are all three states of 

 this variety. 



I adopt the name nadam (or yerra) because it is that ascribed by the Natives 

 of India to one of the most extensively cultivated representatives of the present 

 series of cottons the nadam (or paira or burada) cottons of South India. 

 Middleton speaks of it as the roji of Madras, but he might also have added, or 

 the bani of Central and Northern India. There is, however, a considerable 

 range within even the nadams. Generally speaking they are the inferior cottons 

 of the Madras Presidency ; have often flowers pink in bud and turning reddish 

 purple with age (hence called yerra cottons) ; they are sown either during the 

 north-east monsoon (September to November) or during the south-west mon- 

 soon (from April to June), and occupy the land from three to five or more years. 

 They begin to bear in about nine months after sowing, and yield two harvests 

 in their second year, viz. the one in September and the other in January. Tkav 



580 



Hill 

 Cotton. 



D.E.P., 

 iv., 101-2. 

 Coeonada 

 Cotton. 



They 



