Proceedings of the British Association. 119 



are — First, to excite inquiry on the various species of cotton plant that 

 produce the cotton of commerce. Secondly, to ascertain the nature of 

 soils adapted to each. Thirdly, to prove the practicability of cultiva- 

 ting the plant in India, for the supply of the British market to any 

 extent. Of the species that produce the various cottons of commerce, 

 we have at present very little accurate knowledge, and this has arisen 

 from the alterations undergone by the plant in the process of cultiva- 

 tion. But there can be no doubt that the plants which produce cotton 

 in America, Asia, and Africa, are of decidedly different species. The 

 plant that produces the Brazil cotton, probably the Gossypium hirsutum, 

 grows to the height of from ten to twenty feet, is perennial, and pro- 

 duces cotton with a long and strong staple, and moderately fine and 

 silky. The plant common to the West Indies, said to have been im- 

 ported from Guiana, is triennial, bearing abundantly a fine silky long 

 staple, and is the Gossypium barbadense of botanists. This also is the 

 plant which produces the Sea-island cotton. When this plant was 

 carried from the coast into the interior of Georgia and Carolina, in the 

 United States of America, the seed changed from a black to a green 

 colour, and the staple became shorter, coarser, and more woolly. This 

 plant was afterwards introduced into Egypt, and is the same that pro- 

 duces the Bourbon cotton, cultivated by the French on that island. Mr. 

 Spalding, in a letter alluded to by Mr. G. R. Porter, in his work on 

 tropical productions, records several varieties, attention to which is of 

 the greatest importance to the cultivation, since they vary in the cha- 

 racter of their staple, in the shape and size of their pods, in the hue of 

 the cotton, and in the duration of the plants. The common indigenous 

 plant of India is the Gossypium herbaceum of botanists, and differs in 

 appearance from the cottons of the Western world ; besides which there 

 is the Gossypium religiosum, producing the brown cotton extensively 

 grown in China. It is of the former plant I would desire to speak more 

 especially. It is usually cultivated as an annual, but has been success- 

 fully treated and grown as a perennial by the process of pruning down 

 when the cotton is gathered. The produce of this plant is not inferior 

 in fineness, and is superior in point of richness of colours, to the best 

 cottons of America. The staple is however short, and by the great 

 neglect hitherto evinced in picking the produce at the proper time, and 

 carelessness in allowing particles of dried leaves, or the calyx of the 

 flower to adhere to the wool, it fetches a lower price, and is considered 

 an inferior article, in the English market, to the New Orleans and 

 Georgian of America, though really superior in quality and durability. 

 There is another kind of cotton produced from a species in Africa which 

 Dr. Royle considers allied to the Gossypium herbaceum of India. We 

 now come to speak of the soils in which these plants are cultivated. 

 Several specimens of American soils on which cotton is grown, have 

 been analyzed by Mr. E. Solly, and he finds them generally to consist- 

 first, of a preponderating quantity of sand (silex). Secondly, of alu- 



