GOSSYPIUM. 



the finest yarn, it is worth 5 guineas, and in 

 1780, if woven into muslin and tamboured, was 

 worth 15/. It may now be converted into a 

 piece of lace worth 100 guineas. Report of the 

 Secretary of the Treasury, 1836. 



"The finest quality of sea island cotton, re- 



GOSSYPIUM. 



marks Mr. Baines, in ordinary states of the 

 market, is worth three times as much as the 

 common quality of the same class. The va- 

 rieties in quality in most of the other denomi- 

 nations is from 20 to 25 per cent., and in none 

 of them is more than 50 per cent. 



The following Table, taken from the Liverpool Price Current, under date of December 9, 1842, is sub- 

 joined, as showing the comparative prices of cotton from different countries, and the sections of the 

 globe where the staple is cultivated. 



Diseases and Occidents to which Cotton is sub- 

 ject. The cotton crop is not only rendered very 

 uncertain from the effects of the weather, but 

 frequently suffers the most serious injury from 

 the depredations of insects. The most fatal 

 enemy of the cotton crop in Georgia, Alabama, 

 Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, is a disease 

 called the rot, which has been thus described 

 by Mr. Troup, in the 1st volume of the Ameri- 

 can Farmer. " The first indication is seen in a 

 small circular spot on the outside of the bowl, 

 exhibiting a darker green than the circumjacent 

 parts, as if a globule of water had dropped 

 upon it and been absorbed. Many of these are 

 frequently seen at the same time on the same 

 bowl. They spread themselves sometimes 

 faster, sometimes slower, as if influenced 

 either by the state of the atmosphere, or con- 

 dition of the plant ; changing colour as they 

 progress, until they assume a dark brown ap- 

 proaching to black, and until the whole exterior 

 is affected in like manner, or until it receives 

 from some cause a sudden check, and then 

 this appearance is only partial. In the first 

 case, the disease has penetrated to the centre 

 of the fruit, the fermentation is complete and 

 universal, and is seen in a frothy white liquid, 

 thrown out on the surface. Putrefaction fol- 

 lows, and the destruction of the seed and im- 

 mature wool being finished, nothing is left but 

 the rind or exterior coating of the bowl, which, 

 exhausted of its juices, hardens and turns 

 black, and thus terminates the process. In the 

 other case (that of suddenly checked disease), 

 the interior of the bowl, in some instances, 

 remains unhurt ; in others, is only partially in- 

 jured, and in this last case, the pods remaining 

 unhurt, mature and expand. This, however, 

 rarely happens, as the disease is wonderfully 

 capricious, going and coming unaccountably; 

 attacking at one time with more, at another 

 with less violence : so that the fruit which es- 

 capes entire destruction on the first attack, 

 562 



may fall a victim to the second. Nor is this 

 capriciousness justly attributable to changes 

 in the atmosphere; its origin even does not 

 seem to have any connection with weather. 

 The year 1817, when rot first appeared, was 

 one of remarkable wet. The year 1818, one 

 of remarkable drought. The rot in 1818 was 

 both more general and more destructive than 

 that of 1817. In 1819, which has been as the 

 planHers say, a seasonable year, there is more 

 rot discoverable than at the same time of any 

 preceding year, and there is every probability 

 that it will be both more general and more de- 

 structive. In the same season too, according 

 to my observation, it is in no degree influenced 

 by it for instance, this year it showed itself 

 in my neighbourhood in the most alarming 

 manner for the first time, when the corn and 

 cotton had begun to suffer from a dry spell of 

 two or three weeks. I have known it to stop 

 for a considerable time in very wet weather, 

 and to recommence its progress after the rains 

 had ceased. It is earlier in its appearance 

 this year than before, and I believe earlier the 

 last year than the preceding. This disease 

 attacking at different limes with different de- 

 grees of violence, I will not hazard the asser- 

 tion that its cause is uniformly distinguished 

 by the same appearances. The first indication 

 in very many cases is a dark brown or black 

 spot on the bowl; in others, the whole exterior 

 of the bowl seems to have passed at the same 

 time from the green to the dark brown, and is 

 saturated with moisture, and whilst it is evi- 

 dently suffering the process of fermentation, 

 will open and deliver the wool uninjured. It is 

 the same disease, exhibiting different features 

 as it rages with greater or less degree of acri- 

 mony. It attacks the bowl in every stage from 

 the first formation to that stage of its perfection 

 which immediately precedes developement. 



" It has visited all varieties of soil and treated 

 all alike. I do not mean that every plantation, 



