February 26, 1920] 



NATURE 



695 



ridicule. They have imagined that they were 

 operating- on certain species, or they have coined 

 quasi-scientific names for equally illusory forms 

 known to themselves but to no one else. There 

 can be no manner of doubt that not only critical,^ 

 but also even hypercritical, studies of all the species 

 of Gossvpium are imperatively .necessary. The 

 work accomplished in one country must be capable 

 of immediate adoption in all others. This involves 

 acceptance of definite specific standards throughout 

 the Empire. No plot of land should, therefore, be 

 cultivated with cotton, in the research experimental 

 farms, without carefully prepared botanical samples 

 being kept of the plant, of its seeds, and of its 

 lint. These should be registered and preserved 

 in both the herbarium and the museum, and, when 

 found necessary, duplicates sent to all research 

 stations, as also to the Central Research Institu- 

 tion. W\ further experiments could then contrast 

 result after result, until definite progress had 

 been established or the plant rejected as worthless. 

 We require the history of each species to be 

 worked out in the herbarium, and its habitat 

 thereby fully established, before it can be accepted 

 as a unit for investigation. 



Then, in collaboration with a fully equipped 

 home institution, there should be opened out 

 branch institutions in each of the more important 

 centres of cotton cultivation within the British 

 Empire. Results worked out in Egypt might be 

 quite unsuited to India, to .Africa, or to the West 

 Indies. Each important centre must discover and 

 establish its own stocks. .'Mter the students had 

 passed through the home college, they would be 

 sent out to the branch college of the locality for 

 which they were being trained, and made to study 

 there practical cotton planting, as well as learn 

 the local aspects of the industry. They might 

 with advantage be also sent, for a few months, to 

 an American college. 



So much for Research and Instruction; but it is 

 next to useless to talk of "investigation" and 

 "education " if no rational scheme can be sub- 

 mitted, side by side, of immediate and direct 

 application. In India, for example, cotton is 

 grown exclusively by natives, each of whom owns 

 but a very few acres. It is believed that the 

 Government is averse to granting land (at present 

 cultivated by the people) to be handed over to 

 Europeans. Tea planting became a European 

 industry because it was organised in uncultivated 

 waste lands. It might, therefore, be recommended 

 to the Government of India to make every effort to 

 organise cotton plantations on such conditions as 

 were found possible. The planter, for example, 

 might be guaranteed against loss while given all 

 profits, but subject after, say, twenty or thirty 

 years to being bought out. If some such .scheme 

 could be carried through, it is highly likely that in 

 a very few years cotton planting would be estab- 

 lished on a sound commercial basis, and then for 

 a certainty be greedily taken over by the people 

 themselves. Moreover, were it made known in 

 India that a larg-e cotton-growing scheme had been 

 organised by the Government, landed proprietors 



might be expected to send their sons to England 

 to be trained for running home-farms. Since India 

 is the largest cotton-growing country within the 

 Empire, success there would give the most imme- 

 diate results; but what may be said of India is 

 doubtless more or less true of most other cotton- 

 growing centres. 



It has, however, to be demonstrated that high- 

 class cultivation will pay in order to overcome the 

 peasant cultivation of to-day, with its impecuni- 

 osity that precludes advancement. The planters 

 would all be trained pupils of the college, and 

 given the advantages arranged for on condition of 

 carrying out the principles enjoined on them and 

 also of using the stock supplied from the 

 local research station ; but their plantations 

 should on no account become experimental farms. 

 The planters should, so far as possible, be free 

 agents. The local research stations would no 

 doubt require experimental farms on which to raise 

 and develop seed, and these should be provided, 

 but every effort should at the same time be put 

 forth to organise a European cotton-planting 

 industry, or at all events an industry on European 

 lines. Indian experience (see the report of the 

 Indian Cotton Committee i) would seem to estab- 

 lish at least one great practical conclusion — 

 namely, that there are certain very restricted areas 

 within which the so-called long staples of India 

 can be produced immediately. Assuming that to 

 be correct, cotton planting on a large scale should 

 be' at once organised within these tracts as the 

 initial step. 



In America success may be described as having 

 been due to three main causes : (a) There were no 

 vested interests of native cultivators to contend 

 against ; (6) the cultivation was undertaken by 

 Europeans who were mostly intelligent farmers ; 

 and (c) the planters finally rejected the imported 

 stocks, brought from India and the Levant, and 

 evolved purely American stocks. It was these 

 .American stocks that gave the world most of the 

 prized fine long staples. The lesson to be learnt 

 is that the three directions indicated should be kept 

 clearly in mind through all future endeavours. We 

 may not be able at once to disregard local vested 

 interests, but we can take the most promising 

 course of ultimately overcoming them — for many 

 vears to come, planting must be on European lines 

 if success is to be attained ; and finally we must 

 evolve in each centre its^own stocks from purely 

 indigenous, or at least long-acclimatised, plants. 



Disregard of the vested interests of the people 

 is more dangerous than ignorance of the re- 

 quirements of the plant. As the Indian 

 Committee says (and very properly), the cul- 

 tivator's interests are paramount. It is on that 

 account sailing very much too near the wind to 

 speak, as in the report, of "control of seed " and 

 "compulsory measures against cotton pests." No 

 one, of course, could doubt the value of the argu- 

 ments set forth in these paragraphs, but in certain 

 countries they are highly impracticable. They 



^ Reporf of the Indian Cotlon Coiimittee. (Published by Superintendent 

 of Government of India Printing, 1919.) Price "is. 



