138 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAW COTTON 



this complexity that, while an amateur can grade the lint 

 from small plots of a pure strain fairly successfully, it 

 takes an expert to grade commercial lint. 



Our next step is to attempt to connect these properties 



-n ,. of the lint as shown by our methods, with 

 Properties 



of the those recognized by the grader, with those 



Commercial ascertained finally by the spinner, and to 



Product. i f i -n 



see how far our analysis will carry us. 



Leaving the major characters of length and strength 

 for the moment, there are minor characters such as 

 colour, cleanliness, elasticity, and lustre. Elasticity is 

 probably involved in uniformity; all cotton fibres are 

 elastic to a high degree, and the resulting " feel " of the 

 cotton in this respect is probably a combination of effects 

 resulting from uniformity, fineness, and twist. 



Colour is, in the first instance, based on the inherited 



peculiarities of the variety, modified by subsequent 



events; if the seed-cotton remains too long 



on the plant, or is exposed to dew or strong 

 Modifications. 



sun, the colour fades; there also appear to 

 be different inherited degrees of " fastness " of the colour, 

 some strains bleaching more easily than others under 

 similar conditions of exposure: consequently, while it is 

 often contended that cultivation in a new country changes 

 the colour, and while such change is quite probable, since 

 colour fluctuates like any other character, many $uch 

 examples can be analyzed to fading-phenomena when 

 they are shown in the first year, or to natural selection 

 in a mixture (such as Ashmouni mentioned above) when 

 shown in subsequent years. Cleanliness hardly needs 



