YIELD OF WILD COTTON. 51 



tioned kinds, especially Gossypium Perumanum and Gos- 

 sypium arloreum, are the most frequent in the group ; 

 the fifth seems confined to Laselase, some miles from 

 Namosi ; and the sixth (Nankin) has been met with on 

 Kadavu by Mr. Pritchard, and on the Rakiraki coast 

 by Colonel Smythe. 



There is scarcely any difference in the look of the 

 four first-mentioned kinds which a person not botani- 

 cally trained could readily detect. Left to themselves, 

 and never subjected to the pruning knife, these cotton 

 shrubs become as high as a tall man can reach, and each 

 shrub spreads over a surface of about fourteen feet 

 square. I have had no opportunity of counting the 

 number of pods produced throughout the year by a 

 single specimen, but that found in July was on the 

 average seven hundred per plant. Twenty pods of 

 cleaned cotton weighed 1 oz. ; thus each plant would 

 yield 2 Ibs. 3 oz. Allowing fourteen feet square for 

 each plant, an acre would hold 222 plants, yielding at 

 the rate of 2 Ibs. 3 oz. per individual plant, 485 Ibs. 

 10 oz. Even fixing the price of sorts, worth more than 

 Is. at Manchester, as low as 6d. per pound on the spot, 

 an acre would realize 12. 2s. 9f d. When it is borne 

 in mind that Fijian cotton brings forth ripe fruit with- 

 out intermission throughout the year, but that this cal- 

 culation is based solely upon the number of pods found 

 at one time only, and that the pods were gathered from 

 plants upon which no attention whatever had been be- 

 stowed, the result will be still more striking; double, 

 even treble the above quantity may safely be calculated 

 upon as their annual crop. When it is further remem- 



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