138 NIGERIANORTHERN PROVINCES 



exhausted. This is often permitted to lie fallow for 

 several years, after which cotton is planted in drills on 

 ridges or mounds in July or August. No manure is 

 applied. Generally about a dozen or more seeds are put 

 in each drill, and in this way it is estimated that 

 about a bushel and a half of seed per acre is required. 

 Picking commences in December, and lasts until Febru- 

 ary, as much as 500 Ibs. of seed-cotton per acre being 

 frequently gathered. 



In Kano, cotton is often grown in alternation with 

 cassava, and is a manured crop. Large fields are not 

 seen, as the land is chiefly required for food crops, es- 

 pecially in the vicinity of towns, where the population 

 is dense. General improvements in cultivation, and the 

 introduction of ploughing, would enable a much larger 

 area to be put under cultivation, and would permit of 

 the fertile tracts remote from the towns being employed 

 largely for cotton-growing. 



The above account indicates the direction in which 

 efforts should be made to ensure the most fertile tract 

 of Northern Nigeria, where the population is also most 

 industrious and dense, becoming an important cotton- 

 growing locality. It may be safely said that the land, 

 climate, and industrious population are existent and 

 suitable, but the population is congested, leaving large 

 fertile areas of land untouched. Transport difficulties 

 have up to the present prevented cultivation of products 

 useful for export, and the non-employment of cattle for 

 ploughing has restricted cultivation to the growth of 

 crops entirely absorbed by local necessity. 



Improvement of Plant. In addition to these re- 

 quirements, with regard to cultivation, a rather better 

 class of cotton is necessary in the Northern Provinces. 

 The local variety might perhaps be sufficiently improved 

 under better cultivation and seed selection, but such 

 a process would be gradual and require the undivided 

 attention of an experienced European officer, working 

 in the districts. It has previously been suggested that 

 the introduction of one of the many Upland American 

 kinds might be advantageous ; the local variety ap- 

 proaching that class of plant more nearly than do the 

 varieties occurring in the forest regions farther to the 

 south, where the American varieties have been exten- 



