I.MI'KOVKMKNT OF STOCK 



GOSSYPIUM 



IMPROVEMENT 

 OF STOCK 



: luis commenced to (lose two of the most important outlets for Indian 

 exports. In consequence the necessity to advance has been borne home 

 on the minds of the Indian mill owners. Instead of spinning as their finest 



, (hey have begun to think of 80's, but for this purpose 

 require to import raw cot t on from Egypt, if not even from America. India 

 no lon_'er possesses a cotton suited for that purpose, and the adulteration 

 and mixing of the staple have thus very nearly paralysed the indi. 

 In consequence the outcry for legislation has once more been raised : it 

 has II.MMI urged that a law requiring the locality of production to be stamped 

 on all bales of cotton would have a highly beneficial result. Others look 

 to the expectations of Sind, irrigated by a system of canals that may 

 allow of the production of the high-grade Egyptian cottons, as the most 

 hopeful indication of the future. 



Thus history repeats itself, in no commodity of commerce with greater 

 regularity than in the theories and practices of cotton growing and cotton 

 r rading. One lesson alone seems to stand out through the past decades 

 of the steam-power cotton industry of India as unwavering, viz. the 

 conviction that when the time comes for India to assume once more the 

 role of a producing and even exporting country in the finer cotton goods, 

 it must either have improved its staple or discovered a country capable of 

 meet inu' its necessities in suitable raw fibre. A low-grade staple such as the 

 bulk of that grown in India to-day is utterly unsuited for the higher class 

 machine-made goods, even were it put down at the mills pure and clean at 

 a price below that procurable by any other power mills in the world. Thus 

 it has been shown that cheap production is not necessarily economic 

 production. Expensive labour means higher intelligence, with compensa- 

 tion in quality and price. 0. P. Austin (Cotton Trade of the United States, 

 1900, 2608) points out, and with much force, that the low wages of the 

 Indian cultivator are no real economy, since they prevent cotton culti- 

 vation on a large scale directed by intelligent supervision. Retrograde 

 agriculture, such as has characterised the Indian cotton trade for a century 

 past, must in the end fall behind in the race for commercial supremacy. 



//. IMPROVEMENT OF STOCK. The cultivated cottons of the world 

 have been referred to three great areas (a) Asia, (6) Africa, and (c) America. 

 But it has sometimes been affirmed that the first two can be taken 

 together and spoken of as the fuzzy-seeded Asiatic and the others as the 

 naked-seeded American cottons. But it is not the case that all the 

 fuzzy-seeded species are Asiatic, any more than that all the naked-seeded 

 are American. Moreover, the seeds of wild cottons have either a firmly 

 adhering coating of wool or a readily separable floss. But there are both 

 wild and cultivated cottons that possess both a fuzz and a floss. As 

 already mentioned, Cook (U.S.Dept, Agri. Bull, 1906, No. 88) thinks the 

 wool may be a necessity in the protection of the seed from the enemies of 

 the plant. Certainly in most wild forms, such as G. Stwksii, and still 

 more so G. Dariilsonii, the wool is so firmly and intricately crumpled 

 up around the seed as to prove a veritable proboscis-proof protection, thus 

 causing such seeds to be described as naked, the compacted fuzz having 

 escaped detection. But of purely wild species the following among 

 others possess a short velvety coating around the seed : G. //<///.><// 

 (a native of California) ; G. Palinerii (of Mexico) ; G. stnrtil (of 

 Australia), and G. toinenfosiun (of the Hawaiian Islands). On the 

 other hand, the following have naked seeds : G. Kirkii (of East Tropical 



591 



NeMMitj to 



tionfor 

 declaration of 



BMon 

 tUSt. 



Retrograde 

 Agriculture. 



Fuzzy and 

 Naked Seeds. 



