48 



CHAPTEE III. 



FIJI AS A COTTON-GROWING COUNTBY. COTTON NOT INDIGENOUS BUT NA- 



TUEALIZED. NATIVE NAMES. NUMBER OF SPECIES. AVERAGE PRODUCE 



OF THE WILD COTTON. EXCELLENCE OF FIJIAN COTTON ACKNOWLEDGED 



AT MANCHESTER. EFFORTS OF BRITISH CONSUL AND MISSIONARIES TO 



EXTEND ITS CULTIVATION. THE FIRST THOUSAND POUNDS OF COTTON 



SENT HOME. ESTABLISHMENT OF A PLANTATION AT SOMOSOMO, WAKAYA 



AND NUKUMOTO. PROSPECTS OF COTTON-GROWING IN FIJI. 



COTTON was one of the subjects to which attention was 

 principally directed by my instructions ; and I have en- 

 deavoured to collect every information which might 

 prove useful in forming a correct estimate of the Fijis 

 as a cotton-growing country. If I understand the na- 

 ture and requirements of cotton aright, the Fijis seem 

 to be as if made for it. In the whole group there is 

 scarcely a rod of ground that might not be cultivated, or 

 has not at one time or other produced a crop of some 

 kind, the soil being of an average amount of fertility, 

 and in some parts rich in the extreme. Cotton re- 

 quires a gently undulated surface, slopes of hills rather 

 than flat land. The whole country, the deltas of the 

 great rivers excepted, is a succession of hills and dales, 

 covered on the weather-side with a luxuriant herbage 

 or dense forest ; on the lee-side with grass and isolated 

 screw-pines, more immediately available for planting. 



