52 A MISSION TO VITI. 



bered that Fijian cotton is not an annual, as it is in the 

 United States, and all other countries, when killed by 

 frost or too low a temperature, and that the plants will 

 continue to yield for several years without requiring any 

 other attention than keeping them free from weedy 

 creepers and pruning them periodically, the encourage- 

 ment held out to cultivators will be pronounced very 

 great. 



Until the excellence of Fijian cotton had been ac- 

 knowledged at Manchester, and the mercantile value of 

 the different sorts been ascertained to be Id. to 7^<Z., 

 8d., 9^., lie?., and even I2d. to 12%d. per pound respec- 

 tively, no attempt had been made to cultivate the plant. 

 It was almost entirely left to itself, and perhaps only 

 here and there disseminated by the natives, in order to 

 furnish materials for wicks. But when in November, 

 1859, Mr. Pritchard returned from England to Fiji, with 

 the valuation printed in the Manchester ' Cotton Supply 

 Beporter,' for March, 1859, he induced the most influen- 

 tial chiefs to give orders for planting it ; and the Wes- 

 leyan missionaries, without any exception, zealously 

 aided in these endeavours by recommending the culti- 

 vation, both personally and through the agency of their 

 native teachers. Thus, cotton has been thickly spread 

 over all the Christianized districts, and imparts to them 

 a characteristic feature, occasionally very striking in 

 places having a mixed religious population. In Navua, 

 for instance, that part of the town inhabited by Chris- 

 tians is full of cotton, whilst that inhabited by the 

 heathens destitute of it. 



To guard against misconceptions, it must be stated that 



