SAW-OINNED DHARWAR 



GOSSYPIUM 

 HIRSUTUM 



New Orleans 



ih. -i i- Horn more securely and (irmly bound to the seed-coat than ia the case 



with naked seeds. This has led to two classes of gins, namely saw-gins and xeoeatitrfor 



P. l!.-r .-His the former being regarded as necessary to tear the firmly bound two Kind* of 



tHir.< from tho s.M-d -emit, mul ilio latter sufficient for the naked-seeded cottons. Oto- - 



Tli< tearing of the staple is a significant feature that lowers very materially Tearing of 



tht valuo ..i the floss, apart altogether from other considerations. A naked- 8t *P' e - 

 seeded readily separable floss is, therefore, a high qualification, and one that 

 murks great progression in cotton cultivation. 



Fuzxy. seeded Cottons of the New World. The species that fall 

 into this position are : 



G. hirsutum, Linn., Sp. PI. (non Herb, and non Syst. Nat.), D.E.P., 

 L'ml ed., 1763, 975, founded on Miller, Gard. Diet., 7th ed., 1759, n. 4 ; iv., 17-8. 

 0. latifolium, Murray, Comm. Soc. Reg. Gott., 1776, vii., 22-5, t. 1 ; Watt, Saw-ginned 

 l.o. 183-200, tt. 29-31. This is possibly a cultivated state of G.pun Ha turn, Dharwar. 

 Sch. et Thon. ((i. jdnifiicenite, Mac/.). 



A botanical specimen contributed by Philip Miller is preserved in the British Miller's CheUea 

 Museum and is, therefore, very possibly the actual type of the species. Another Stock- 

 specimen of the same plant will be found in the Badminton Garden herbarium 

 (also preserved in the British Museum), which was very probably the source 

 from whence Miller obtained seed. And it is just possible the Badminton stock 

 came from Guadeloupe Island, having been contributed by the brothers Lignon, 

 mentioned by Tournefort as having sent seeds of West Indian plants, more 

 especially from Guadeloupe, to Paris. It is interesting, therefore, to be able 

 to add that the record exists of seed having been grown in Georgia in 1734, from Grown In 

 a supply furnished by Miller from the Chelsea Physic Garden. There is thus Geor 8 ia ' 

 little doubt that the introduction of the actual stock of the New Orleans, 

 Georgian, and many other short-staple American cottons, dates very possibly 

 from the supply sent out by Miller. But to this same plant has to be attributed 

 the Egyptian (Delta lands) cotton a plant that existed very possibly in 

 Upper Egypt long anterior to the modern traffic, the stock of which we know 

 came very largely from the United States of America. So also the so-called 

 saw-ginned Dharwar cottons of recent Indian commerce were obtained from the 

 States, though later supplies were procured from Egypt, from belief that they 

 represented a special and peculiar plant known in trade as " Egyptian Cotton." 



Some years previous to this historic introduction of the Dharwar stock, 

 Roxburgh spoke of the plant having been only of late brought into India. He 

 does not tell us where it came from, but his description occasions no doubt as 

 to its determination, and he was the first botanist to affirm that the seeds were 

 free from each other. Interest was being taken in the plant the world over, 

 however, since towards the close of the 18th century Murray furnished an ad- 

 mirable picture and description of it, under the name 0. latifolium. During 

 the past fifty or sixty years the cultivation of this cotton in India has gradually Cultivation in 

 concentrated in the Deccan. It is, of course, also met with in other parts of India. 

 India, but success has chiefly attended its acclimatisation in Dharwar and the 

 neighbouring districts, hence its being known in trade as Saw-ginned Dharwar. 

 In 1894 I made a tour on foot through certain districts of the Central Pro- 

 vinces and Berar, in order to study in the field the cottons there cultivated. 

 In many parts of Nagpur, Wardha, Ellichpur, Amraoti and Akola I found the 

 present plant very largely mixed in all the fields of the so-called higher grade 

 " Oomras." In many cases it would not have been an over-estimate to say that 

 they contained from 20 to 30 per cent, of - htrmitnm. the balance being 

 i-. x<inking, var. Hani, of an inferior stock for the most part. The latter was Admixture. 

 a much larger and more prolific yielder, and the former was grown, so the cul- 

 tivators told me, entirely because the mixture was believed to raise the grade 

 of the staple. Except, therefore, in Dharwar, where it is grown as a pure crop, 

 the condition mentioned as discovered in tho Central Provinces is characteristic 

 of the occurrence of the present plant in India as a whole. It has, however, General 

 greatly degenerated, and is often not more than a foot or a foot and a half in Appearance, 

 height ; is a coarse, stunted, much-branched, erect, greenish-red, dust-coated 

 bush, the last-mentioned peculiarity being a consequence of the abundance, 

 length and strength of the hairs with which the shoots, leaf-stalks and veins 

 are coated. The seeds are always large, ovate, truncated on one extremity 

 and have a strong dense fuzz, which may be grey or green in colour. The floss 



585 



