10 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW COTTON 



long lint in place of short lint. Similarly, perhaps, the varia- 

 tions in distribution on the seed may have arisen, but more 

 probably the primitive lint originated all over the seed coat, 

 and has become irregular in its distribution by loss of factors, 

 just in the same way as the fuzz, down to sports which are 

 found in American Upland and in Hindi Weed, producing 

 naked seed with neither fuzz nor lint ! Similarly, there are 

 indications that mutations may take place in long-linted 

 cottons at the present day, whereby short ancestral lint 

 reappears; but the experimental difficulties in keeping a 

 cotton-plant's pedigree untarnished are so great that it must 

 be many years before any definite statements can be made 

 on this subject 



It may be considered somewhat absurd to state 

 that the lint length in every variety of cotton de- 

 Effect of One P en< ^ s on inherited factors, in that it 

 Characteristic would seem to demand an endless number 

 on Another. o f factors, or at least one for every eighth 

 of an inch increase in length. As a matter of fact, no 

 such demand is made ; some three lengths at most would 

 cover the whole range of raw cottons, the gradations being 

 provided by a process for which the author has devised 

 the term "Autogenous Fluctuation," as distinct from 

 ordinary Fluctuation due to external circumstances; in 

 this process the manifestation of a character is affected 

 by the inherited nature of the plant body on which it is 

 borne. Thus, if 'a IJ-inch lint borne on a medium-sized 

 seed is transferred by crossing to a large-seeded plant, 

 it will rise in length to about 1J inches; and, conversely, 

 if placed in a small-seeded plant, it will fall to 1 inch. 

 Many other similar effects can be traced, due to the in- 

 herited size of the boll, the leaf area, branching, and other 



