COTTON 126 



date, and must continue to regard the experiment 

 as one which may not mature in time to benefit 

 the present generation at all. 



Cotton has emphatically not succeeded. I do 

 not mean by this that none has been sent home. 

 Sample consignments have, on the contrary, been 

 shipped to Europe which have sold for high prices ; 

 but they have been the outcome of careful selection, 

 or else resulted from fortunate and therefore ex- 

 ceptional climatic conditions upon which it would 

 be fatuous to rely. Not only is the rainfall of the 

 lower Zambezi far too capricious for so sensitive a 

 growth as the cotton bush, but Africa with her 

 astonishing resourcefulness has lost no time in 

 discovering an agency against which cotton-planters 

 have hitherto struggled in vain. This is the 

 Malvacearum, or green-fly pest. It comes just as 

 the healthy appearance of the plantation arouses 

 hopefulness almost amounting to confidence of 

 complete success. One morning the luckless planter 

 notes with a feeling of nervous apprehension that 

 some of the tender green leaves of the shrubs are 

 shrivelled and discoloured. The next day, with 

 a sharp intake of breath, he sees the discoloration 

 has spread. Dismayed and alarmed he seeks the 

 counsel of his neighbours, and learns that he may 

 now cut down every acre he has planted, and that 

 his toil and care have been thrown away. There 

 you get Africa all over. If it had not been green 

 fly, locusts would probably have been the cause of 

 the failure. Everything agricultural has been 

 expressly furnished with one or more hostile 

 agencies, and these are chiefly of an insect character. 



