vi PREFACE 



is the more difficult. Practice draws average lines of 

 conduct through the medley of practical considerations, 

 and except in the cultivation of Pure Strains, and the 

 shortening of the Picking Intervals both of which are 

 too expensive to employ except on high-priced cottons 

 the researches have resulted in little of immediate applic- 

 ability. I have endeavoured, however, to leave the matter 

 in such a form as will enable the results of future scientific 

 researches on other plants, and on animals also, to be 

 fitted to the special case of the cotton-plant with as little 

 waste of time and trouble as may be. 



My greatest difficulty has been due to the very limited 

 appeal which my subject makes to a very wide audience, 

 whom it is nevertheless desirable to reach. The possi- 

 bility of a purely popular treatment in this book was 

 rejected as too remote, besides being dangerous with a 

 relatively unfinished topic. On the other hand, all 

 technicalities and jargon outside those pertaining to 

 cotton have been deleted wherever it was practicable 

 to do so. Some care has been taken to facilitate perusal 

 by the employment of varied type, and by the use of 

 marginal notes indicating the main interest of para- 

 graphs as relating to the seed, growing, irrigation, 

 ginning, grading, and spinning of cotton. 



Comparatively few references are made to the writings 

 of previous authors, and this has been done deliberately, 

 because the subject has suffered severely from injudicious 

 copying of accepted statements without verification. A 

 list of the chief works read is appended. 



Three causes have led to this comparative independence 

 of treatment. In the first place should be set the re- 

 searches and influence of Mr. F. F. Blackman, Reader in 

 Botany in Cambridge University, which have revolution- 

 ized our knowledge of the workings of plants, and recon- 

 stituted the available data. The author was one of those 



