COTTON 291 



cotton-producing potentialities of the Northern Provinces 

 of Nigeria. An account of the cotton industry of that 

 country would therefore be incomplete without mention 

 of the work which they have done and the results so far 

 obtained. A uniform price of id. per Ib. has been offered 

 to the natives for all seed-cotton. Ginneries have been 

 erected on the main transport routes for dealing with 

 the crop, the lint being made up by means of hydraulic 

 presses into 400 Ib. bales, in which form it is shipped to 

 Liverpool. Furthermore, large quantities of seed have 

 been distributed annually through the Chiefs to th^ 

 peasantry free of charge, so that nobody who desired to 

 grow cotton should be prevented from doing so by lack 

 of seed. 



At present three power ginneries are maintained by 

 the Association. One of these has been working since 

 1906 at Lokoja the confluence of the Niger and Benue 

 rivers and last year shipped 339 bales. The other two 

 plants are situated at Zaria and Ibi respectively, and were 

 started in 1912. Their joint output for last year (1913) 

 was 1,506 bales. 



It will thus be seen that hitherto the output of cotton 

 from the Northern Provinces has been quite small. It 

 has, moreover, been derived purely from unimproved 

 cottons of local origin. A brief survey will now be given 

 of these indigenous cottons, and of the steps which have 

 been taken by the Agricultural Department during the 

 past year to improve the prospects of cotton cultivation. 



The principal species in cultivation at the present time 

 are the following : 



Gossypium peruvianum, two varieties. 

 ,, punctatum. 

 ,, obtusifolium var. africana. 



,, arboreum var. sanguine a. 



By far the most widely cultivated is Gossypium peru- 

 vianum, which develops into a strong-growing woody 

 plant. The bolls are small, and the crop seldom seems 

 to yield under native cultivation more than 250 Ib. of 

 seed-cotton per acre, but generally not as much. The 

 length of staple is generally less than an inch. 



