56 THE DEVELOPMENT OF KAW COTTON 



the world's ignorance of the subject. Owing to lack of 



material, the subject of fertilization was not dealt with, 



the work having been done in England, 



Previous p resuma bly on material sent from abroad. 

 Authors. 



At the same time, but independently, the 



present author published a paper dealing with the develop- 

 ment of the flower from the primordial bud until a few 

 days after its opening, and incidentally dealing with the 

 earliest stages of the development of the lint. These two 

 accounts both showed that the accepted story, as given 

 by Dr. Bowman, was not reliable. 



The errors of Bowman's description, which has been 

 quoted as late as 1904, were mainly due to natural causes, 

 this description having been published in 1881, when 

 botany was considered to be an "inaccurate science," 

 and our knowledge of plant and cell structure was much 

 smaller. Unfortunately, a new edition of Bowman's 

 work was published in 1908, which repeats almost all the 

 original mistakes in greater detail. Monie's work, pub- 

 lished in 1904, need not be mentioned in this connection, 

 since it is largely based on Bowman's book of 1881, with 

 some philosophical additions. The only critical state- 

 ments on the subject, other than Flatters', are in Mr. 

 Scott Taggart's book, which does not profess to deal with 

 the development of the fibre. The justifiable comments 

 made in this work provoked a reply from Monie in Jhe 

 1904 edition of his book, but the effect of this reply was 

 nullified by the fact that in the preceding lines mention 

 had been made of " vital fluids, which are composed of a 

 creamy-coloured oleaginous matter." 



