276 



COTTON. 



Cotton, considered visionary, and that is a steam-engine so 

 placed as to throw the water it raises over the front 

 dam into the sea. The expence of purchasing consti- 

 tutes the only objection of weight, and should that be 

 got over, the efficiency of the remedy must stand con- 

 fessed. Upon the whole, however, a secure and ample 

 drainage should be the first object on a Demerary 

 plantation, for it is by that almost alone that this species 

 of blast can be prevented or cured. 



The privation of moisture, and the destruction of the 

 organs of exhalation and inhalation of the plant, the 

 leaves, by the caterpillar, are great evils, but of infi- 

 nitely less magnitude than the excess of moisture. They 

 have their remedy. In situations where the continuity 

 and level of surface are not inteiTupted, as is the case 

 generally on the sea-coast of Demerary, beyond the 

 cultivated grounds, a supply of fresh water may, by 

 the exercise of a little industry, be at all times obtain- 

 ed. By carrying a small canal about a thousand roods 

 into the interior country, where the surface is in its 

 native state, covered by a thick coat of a spongy ve- 

 getable substance, (Pagass), at all times charged with 

 fresh water, a constant flow of this most necessary ar- 

 ticle may be maintained, sufficient to irrigate the fields, 

 and to supply the negroes with drink. An excellent 

 man, and a" good though speculative planter, Mr Post, 

 exemplified the practicability of this resource in a most 

 remarkable and most benevolent manner, in the very 

 long dry seasons of 1801 and 1805. In the case be- 

 fore us, the usual method resorted to, is to admit a cer- 

 tain portion of salt water into the trenches, the effect 

 of which is strongly to stimulate the cotton trees, and 

 a general blow, or bursting of pods, often ensues ; but 

 this method requires so much judgment in the employ- 

 ment of it, as to render it very generally dangerous — 

 too great a supply excites the trees to an effort which 

 soon proves fatal to them. This, in fact, is a fine il- 

 lustration in vegetables, of the doctrine of wasted ex- 

 citability in animals ; the result is precisely the same 

 in both; for, to use the language of Brown, "no means 

 «f reproducing the healthy state, that is, the proper 

 degree of excitement, is left, but the_v«iy circumstance 

 that occasioned the waste, that is, already an excess 

 ©f stimulant operation, not admitting of more stimu- 

 lus." 



It is unnecessary to offer any observations on the third 

 state of disease of cotton trees, the subduction of ex- 

 citement or gangrene, or what, in strict propriety of 

 language, is blast or blight ; it is a state truly irreme- 

 diable. All that can be done, must be done in the way 

 of prevention ; and an attention to the means of curing 

 the first state of disease, will in a great measure pre- 

 vent this, viz. good drainage : for if the excess of ex- 

 citement is prevented from taking place, or obviated 

 should it take place, there will be the less danger from 

 the sudden subduction of it. 



Upon the whole, a judicious s)'stem of cotton plant- 

 ing, including the various operations of chaining and 

 cross-draining, if necessary ; of levelling and open plant- 

 ing the land (squares of six feet) ; of taping, singling, and 

 weeding, the young cotton fields ; of weeding, prun- 

 ing, and dressing, the old trees, on or before the first 

 of June ; of deepening and clearing the drains before 

 the actual occurrence of the dry season in August; of 

 providing as much as possible the means of irrigation 

 in long tracts of aridity ; — these, I say, together with 

 a general attention to the course and succession of the 



seasons, and to the -phases of the moon, Will be the Cotton. 

 most certain means of preventing the various evils of "*> "Y"""" 

 plethora, debility, and gangrene, in the cotton trees, 

 or curing them should they unhappily prevail. 



Before I conclude, however, I may observe, that there 

 is another species of blight which arises from lodging the 

 seed in imperfectly drained land. This is a species pe- 

 culiar to Demerary, and countries whose soil is natu- 

 rally surcharged with water, but does not come pre- 

 cisely under the class of diseases occasioned by plethora 

 and destruction of the sap root, although nearly allied 

 to them. Cotton planters say that in such land, the 

 plant is sickly from a sour mater which remains in it 

 until it be completely drained. They are not aware of 

 the propriety of the expression ; for the sickness of the 

 plant, in truth, is produced by the basis of acidity. 

 The water becomes decomposed, and the earth absorbs 

 hydrogen, and the disengaged oxygen mixes with the 

 atmosphere, and enters in the composition of the ve- 

 getable growing in the soil, which thus become super- 

 oxygenated, and perish from that cause. 



A constant attendant on blast, or when the cotton 

 has even a tendency to blast, is an insect, called by 

 cotton planters the cotton bug. Thousands inhabit the 

 pods when the plant is in a diseased state, and seem to 

 contribute much to its destruction. I have reason to 

 believe that this insect has not hitherto been correctly 

 characterised. It is certain that Dr Brown has failed 

 in doing so, and both he and Mr Hughes, the historio- 

 grapher of Barbadoes, have confounded it with the moth 

 and the bruchi, which are inhabitants of the cotton tree 

 in any state. Dr Brown calls it a cotton fly, and dis- 

 tinguishes it thus, Bruchas kermesinus maculis ni- 

 gris notatis elitrarum extremis Juscis. Although this 

 description corresponds precisely with the natural ap- 

 pearance, figure, and form of the cotton bug, it certain- 

 ly is by no means applicable to the bruchus ; and when 

 he adds, " the caterpillars of these flies are frequently 

 pernicious to the cotton bushes, and often destroy whole 

 fields of the most promising plants in a short time," he 

 confounds it with the moth. The cotton bug is really 

 a species of cimex, unnoticed by Linnaeus, and belongs 

 more particularly to the oblongi. It may be distin- 

 guished by the name of the plant it inhabits, (C. Gos- 

 sypioides), and its character is that I have quoted from 

 Brown. The young bugs are scarlet, and inhabit the 

 blasted pods of cotton. The full grown bug is that 

 described by Brown, and possesses (when bruised) all 

 the offensive foetid smell of the domestic bug (C Lu~ 

 lalarius. ) 



Such is the natural history of the cotton, and its dis- 

 eases, in as extended a form as our limits admit. We 

 now shall conclude with a rapid sketch of its commer- 

 cial history 



Cotton was known to the ancients, and is particu- 

 larly described by Pliny. We have not, however, been 

 able to discover the mode of its manufacture in those 

 early periods. The beauty of the substance, and its 

 obvious applicability to many purposes, would no doubt 

 excite a very early attention ; but it was not until the 

 wonderful facilities winch were introduced into the spin- 

 ning of the raw material, that it became an object of 

 extensive cultivation by Europeans. In India, indeed, 

 where the cheapness of labour always counterbalances, 

 the necessity for much manual labour, it has been long 

 cultivated and manufactured into muslins and calicoes, 



