334 



to agree with what Mr. McCall has just said about planting 

 towards the end of the rains. 



Mr. W. N. SANDS (St. Vincent): I have been much 

 interested in Mr. Thornton's paper in connection with 

 boll shedding'. Boll shedding takes place, I suppose, in 

 every part of the world where cotton is grown, and 

 even in the production of fine Sea Island cotton we 

 at times experience great loss in this direction. We attri- 

 bute it to unfavourable climatic conditions. I do not think 

 the time at which the cotton is planted matters so much with 

 us, but rather the weather conditions experienced during the 

 time the flowers are open. We notice very often that after 

 three or four days of very dull or rainy weather, when there 

 is very little sun, that a good number of the bolls have fallen 

 off. I think also some varieties are more susceptible to shed- 

 ding than others. I have grown a good many varieties side 

 by side under similar climatic conditions. For instance, the 

 Marigoland cotton is a very strong growing perennial type 

 from the Grenadines, 6 ft. or 7 ft. high ; but in St. Vincent, where 

 we get a very heavy rainfall, it is very difficult to get any bolls 

 to stay on the plants in the wet season, and until we get to 

 the drier months of January or February we get no bolls on 

 the plants at all; the consequence is we get very tall plants 

 with all the bolls on the top. On the other hand, we have 

 grown Sea Island side by side with Marigoland and had all 

 the bolls on the trees. The Sea Island, we think, has become 

 more acclimatized to our conditions than the perennial kind 

 from the Grenadines. 



Lieut. -Col. J. H. COLLENS (Trinidad): It is within my know- 

 ledge that Mr. Thornton has done very good work in our part 

 of the world, in the Southern West Indies, and I should like to 

 ask him whether he finds any difference in the growing of 

 cotton in Northern Nigeria compared with Trinidad and 

 Tobago. I may mention that in Trinidad there is very little 

 grown, for reasons which are known to Mr. Thornton, but 

 I should like to ask him whether the plants he suggests for 

 Northern Nigeria would be suitable for Trinidad and Tobago ? 



Mr. THORNTON : With reference to Mr. McCall's remarks, 

 he rather inferred that I had stated we planted at the begin- 

 ning of the wet season, but this is not so. The wet season 

 commences during April, and some of my cotton was not 

 planted until July 28; most of the cotton of which I was 

 speaking was planted on July 15 from the I5th to the 28th. 

 The rain ceased on October 19, so that the plants only had 

 about three months' rain. I saw plants which had been 

 planted later than those which I planted on the experimental 

 farm, but very little growth was obtained from them. 



Mr. Himbury asks whether the conditions were not excep- 



