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to agree with what Mr. McCall has just said about planting 
towards the end of the rains. 
Mr. W. N. Sanps (St. Vincent): I have been much 
interested in Mr. Thornton’s paper in connection with 
boll shedding. Boll shedding takes place, I suppose, in 
every part of the world where cotton is grown, and 
even in the production of fine Sea Island cotton we 
at times experience great loss in this direction. We attri- 
bute it to unfavourable climatic conditions. I do not think 
the time at which the cotton is planted matters so much with 
us, but rather the weather conditions experienced during the 
time the fowers are open. We notice very often that after 
three or four days of very dull or rainy weather, when there 
is very little sun, that a good number of the bolls have fallen 
off. I think also some varieties are more susceptible to shed- 
ding than others. I have grown a good many varieties side 
by side undér similar climatic conditions. For instance, the 
Marigoland cotton is a very strong growing perennial type 
from the Grenadines, 6 ft. or 7 ft. high; but in St. Vincent, where 
we get a very heavy rainfall, it is very difficult to get any bolls 
to stay on the plants in the wet season, and until we get to 
the drier months of January or February we get no bolls on 
the plants at all; the consequence is we get very tall plants 
with all the bolls on the top. On the other hand, we have 
grown Sea Island side by side with Marigoland and had all 
the bolls on the trees. The Sea Island, we think, has become 
more acclimatized to our conditions than the perennial kind 
from the Grenadines. 
Lieut.-Col. J. H. Cotiens (Trinidad): It is within my know- 
ledge that Mr. Thornton has done very good work in our part 
of the world, in the Southern West Indies, and I should like to 
ask him whether he finds any difference in the growing of 
cotton in Northern Nigeria compared with Trinidad and 
Tobago. I may mention that in Trinidad there is very little 
grown, for reasons which are known to Mr. Thornton, but 
I should like to ask him whether the plants: he suggests for 
Northern Nigeria would be suitable for Trinidad and Tobago? 
Mr. Troryton: With reference to Mr. McCall’s remarks, 
he rather inferred that I had stated we planted at the begin- 
ning of the wet season, but this is not so. The wet season 
commences during April, and some of my cotton was not 
planted until July 28; most of the cotton of which I was 
speaking was planted on July 15—from the 15th to the 28th. 
The rain ceased on October 19, so that the plants only had 
about three months’ rain. I saw plants which had been 
planted later than those which I planted on the experimental 
farm, but very little growth was obtained from them. 
Mr. Himbury asks whether the conditions were not excep- 
