26 THE COAST REGION. 



cotton, it may not be possible to say. The black seed, however, is not 

 (listin<i;uislKMl from the seed of the long staple or sea island cotton. If 

 selected from among the other varieties of iii)land cotton seed, it will in a 

 series of years produce a finer, silkier and stronger fibre than ordinary 

 uplands. If the best and purest sea island cotton seed be planted in the 

 neighborhood of the upland or short staple cotton they will readily 

 hybridize. Among the numerous varieties of hybrids thus produced, 

 there will prominently appear a vigorous plant, with a very large green 

 seed. The staple of these green seed plants varies greatly, in some in- 

 stances being very short and coarse, in others longer and finer even than 

 the best sea island. The most marked characteristic, however, of these 

 hybrids will be the size and vigor of the plants, the size of the seed 

 and the very small amount of lint they 3'ield. A noticeable feature, 

 too, is the large number of vigorous, growing, but unfruitful, plants that 

 these green seed hybrids produce, their large, glossy leaves showing above 

 the other plants, but bearing the season through neither bud or blossom. 

 Possibly such plants merely resume the biennial character of the tree or 

 the shrub cotton and would be fruitful the second season. 



Were it in place here to offer a theory, these characteristics of this 

 green seed hybrid might be adduced as evidc^ice of a reversion to the 

 original type of the allied species which Darwin refers to, as a frequent 

 occurrence among hybrids produced between remoter and more dissimilar 

 varieties. 



ORIGIN OF LONG STAPLE COTTON. 



It would be a matter of much interest to determine the origin and his- 

 tory of the varieties of cotton now in cultivation. The difficulties of doing 

 this are much increased by the very wide geographical range occupied by 

 the plant. The earliest explorers, Columbus, Magellan, Drake, Capt. 

 Cook, and others, seem to have found it almost everywhere in the broad 

 belt extending from the equator to 30° S. and to 40° and 45° N. latitude, 

 where it now grows. Although it is not found among those oldest of vest- 

 ments, the wrappings of Egyptian mummies, its use was known to man in 

 Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and the outlying islands of the sea, in 

 the remote past, far beyond the historic age. Its very name itself bears 

 evidence to this, occurring as it does in many, and in the mo.st ancient 

 languages. Thus through the Dutch ketoen, Italian cotone, Spanish al- 

 godon, we pass to the Greek kiton, turned wrong side out in the Latin tunic, 

 to the Arabic katan, the Syriac kethene, the Samaritan kitana, the Sanscrit 

 katan, the Hebrew kuttoneth (Gen. xxxvii : 23, 31), the Ethiopic kethan, 

 the Chaldee kethan ; and Gesenius conducts us to a most ancient and 

 obsolete Semetic root, kathan, signifying to cover. Nevertheless nothing 



