YIELD OF WILD COTTON. 51 
tioned kinds, especially Gossypium Peruvianum and Gos- 
sypium arboreum, are the most frequent in the group ; 
the fifth seems confined to Laselase, some miles from 
Namosi; and the sixth (Nankin) has been met with on 
Kadavu by Mr. Pritchard, and on the Rakiraki coast 
by Colonel Smythe. 
There is scarcely any difference in the look of the 
four first-mentioned kinds which a person not botani- 
cally trained could readily detect. Left to themselves, 
and never subjected to the pruning knife, these cotton 
shrubs become as high as a tall man can reach, and each 
shrub spreads over a surface of about fourteen feet 
square. I have had no opportunity of counting the 
number of pods produced throughout the year by a 
single specimen, but that found in July was on the 
average seven hundred per plant. Twenty pods of 
cleaned cotton weighed 1 0z.; thus each plant would 
yield 2lbs. 30z. Allowing fourteen feet square for 
each plant, an acre would hold 222 plants, yielding at 
the rate of 2lbs. 30z. per individual plant, 485 lbs. 
10 oz. Even fixing the price of sorts, worth more than 
1s. at Manchester, as low as 6d. per pound on the spot, 
an acre would realize £12. 2s. 92d. When it is borne 
in mind that Fijian cotton brings forth ripe fruit with- 
out intermission throughout the year, but that this cal- 
culation is based solely upon the number of pods found 
at one time only, and that the pods were gathered from 
plants upon which no attention whatever had been be- 
stowed, the result will be still more striking; double, 
even treble the above quantity may safely be calculated 
upon as their annual crop. When it is further remem- 
E 2 
