54 A MISSION TO VITI. 
there will be a marked increase in the crops, when the 
numerous young plants added to the old stock at Mr. 
Pritchard’s investigation begin to produce their harvest. 
On leaving England in February, 1860, the Man- 
chester Cotton Supply Association, through their able 
secretary, Mr. Haywood, furnished me with a large 
quantity of New Orleans and Sea Island cotton-seeds, 
together with printed instructions for their cultivation. 
Distributing a fair share of the seeds and papers amongst 
white settlers, who, I felt persuaded, would make use 
of them, I myself was enabled to establish a small cotton 
plantation on the Somosomo estate of Captain Wilson, 
and M. Joubert, of Sydney, in the island of Taviuni. 
None of the seeds of the Sea Island sort possessed any 
germinating power ; but those of the New Orleans cot- 
ton were very good, and readily grew. Sown on the 
9th of June, they began to yield ripe pods within three 
months, and I was thus enabled to take home a crop 
from the very seed I brought out, though my absence 
from England only amounted to thirteen months alto- 
gether. This may truly be termed growing cotton by 
steam. When I paid a second visit to Somosomo, on 
the 18th of October, my plants were from four to seven 
feet high, full of ripe pods and flowers, which in the 
morning were of a pale yellow, but towards evening 
turned pink. Koytoo, the Rotuma native, whom I had 
desired to look after the plantation, said that the field 
only required weeding once; . after that the cotton-plants 
grew so rapidly that they kept down: the weeds, and he 
had no further trouble. 
Simultaneously, Dr. Brower, -United States Vice-Con- 
