cultivated in N.W. India,. Egypt, Northern Africa, Asia Minor 

 and Southern Europe. It is perennial and bushy in the 

 warmer areas, and annual where the cold weather being severe 

 kills the plants. The stems are erect, branches spreading. 

 Leaves pale green, thick, leathery, half segmented into 3, 5 to 

 7 lobes. Flowers yellow with a large purple patch. Its 

 chief features are its broad leaves, more rounded lobes, 

 the absence of hairs. The seeds are beaked and the 

 cotton inferior. The Khaki coloured cottons belong to G. 

 herbaceum. As the superior Indian cottons with large 

 bolls belong to the G. arboreum and as the still superior 

 Egyptian and American cottons belonging to G. barbadense 

 are being successfully grown in India, we need not deal any 

 further with the G. herbaceum. 



465. The relative value of cotton fibre depends mainly 

 on the length of the staple. The Sea-island cotton has its 

 staple i '6.5 inches long, the Egyptian 1/50 inches, the Bourbon 

 or ordinary American no inches and the Indian -65 to '90 

 inch, the latter figure being the average for G. arboreum. 



466. Cotton is soluble in strong alkaline solutions. With 

 nitric and sulphuric acids in same proportions, it forms gun- 

 cotton, which dissolved in ether and rectified spirit, produces 

 collodion. It has a strong affinity for alumina, hence the use 

 of alum as mordant in dyeing cotton. Iron stains it yellow 

 which cannot be removed by alkalis or soap unless the stain 

 is quite recent. It has strong affinity for oxide of tin also, 

 which like alum is used as a mordant. Nitric acid and heat 

 decompose cotton wool and form oxalic acid. 



467. The stems of the plant if rotted yield-good fibre. 



468. Indian cotton seed is not so rich in oil as the Ameri- 

 can cotton seed and this fact should be borne in mind if the 

 extraction of seed for oil from the seed is thought of. 



469. In the struggle between America and India in the 

 European cotton market, which has gone on for 100 years, 

 America has gradually supplanted India. In 1818, the export 



