STRUCTURE OF THE BOLL 55 



order to afford the reader an opportunity of satisfying 

 himself as to their validity, the rather exceptional course 

 has been followed of presenting in the Appendix a great 

 part of the experimental data themselves in the form of 

 tables, instead of merely summarizing them in the 

 diagrams. 



The biologist will probably see that a number of 

 reservations would have to be made if the arguments 

 were carried much farther, but such reservations would 

 be due to general causes such as the very recent de- 

 velopment of Limiting Factor methods in the study of 

 Growth and not to any fundamental uncertainty as to 

 the particular case of the cotton fibre. 



The spinner will also see that similar uncertainties are 

 only just avoided by restriction of the scope of the work. 

 It is the author's hope that either he or some other 

 student may ultimately be able to write a sequel to this 

 book, by similar examination of lint at various stages of 

 manufacture. Even simple breaking- strain determina- 

 tions before and after the processes of ginning, baling, 

 pressing, bale - breaking, scutching, carding, drawing, 

 combing, spinning, etc., w r ould be well worth having, if 

 the fate of a bale from a single field could be followed in 

 this way, since from such a numerical basis established 

 for an obvious characteristic it would be easier to pro- 

 ceed step by step to elucidation of the more subtle features, 

 with which this book can scarcely profess to deal. 



In the year 1905 a small book dealing with the micro- 

 scopic structure of the cotton-plant was published by 

 Mi . Flatters, containing some very pertinent remarks on 



