COTTON. 171 



later in maturity. The seed is usually naked, while that of 

 hirsuturn is generally fuzzy. The flowers of hirsutum are 

 white, turning red on the second day of blooming, but yellow 

 with a purple-red spot at the base of each petal in barhadense. 

 The fibre of hirsutum measures from f to 1'^'' inches in length, 

 while that of barhadense from 1| to 2 inches. 



Under cultivation, cotton is treated as if it were a summer 

 annual, the seed being planted annually. Annual planting may 

 be avoided by ratoomng, i.e., cutting off the crop close to the 

 ground and allowing the aftermath the next season to provide 

 the crop. Eatoonmg is condemned because insect pests are 

 favoured by the practice and, moreover, experiments have 

 shown it to result in very much depreciated yields. 



There are two sorts of branches in the cotton plant* : 

 " (a) Vegetative branches or ' limbs,' and (b) fruiting 

 branches. There are two buds at the base of each leaf. One 

 of these is a true axillary bud, the other one extra-axillary. 

 Vegetative branches or limbs may arise from either axillary or 

 extra-axillary buds. Normal fruiting branches arise only from 

 extra-axillary buds. It frequently happens that both fruiting 

 and vegetative branches arise at one node, that is, both the 

 extra-axillary and the true axillary buds develop. Ordinarily, 

 however, only one bud at a node develops. The axillary buds 

 usually develop into branches at only a few nodes on the lower 

 part of the main stem. The accompanying extra-laterals 

 remain dormant. On the other hand, the upper true axillary 

 buds normally fail to develop, while each of their accompany- 

 ing extra-laterals forms a fruiting branch. Hence, in most 

 cultivated cotton varieties no fruiting branches occur on the 

 lower part of the main stem. 



" Vegetative and fruiting branches differ from each other 

 in more ways than origin. The former makes a small angle with 

 the stem from which they arise, while fruiting branches are 

 more horizontal. Vegetative branches produce no flower buds, 

 while fruiting branches bear a flower bud opposite each leaf. 

 Vegetative branches are frequently as long as the main axis, 

 while fruiting branches arc much shorter. The basal internode 

 of fruiting branches is usually longer than the others. The 

 difference in length is much more pronounced in Egyptian 

 cotton than in Upland cotton. The internodes of vegetative 

 branches are about equal in length. Vegetative branches may 

 form both fruiting and secondary vejretative branches, but fruit- 

 ing branches seldom bear secondary fruiting branches or vegeta- 



