Jan. 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



ON THE COTTON PLANT. 245 



These, according to the best and latest authorities, are but two in species ; 

 far the greater part of them being derivations of one — Gossypium bar- 

 badense. 



They are handsome, more or less short-lived trees, biennial or peren- 

 nial in warm climates ; annual wherever a true winter ends the year. 

 The Bourbon plant is generally received as a type, or varietas princeps, 

 of the species. It is supposed to be indigenous to the hottest regions, 

 the terras calientes of Mexico, whence it was taken to the Isle de Bour- 

 bon, Anguilla in the Antilles, the Mauritius, and finally to Barbados ; 

 and these islands were undoubtedly the nurseries from whence came the 

 stock which supplied plants to the cotton-producing States of America. 

 The varieties into which this species runs take their peculiar forms and 

 qualities of staple from the various aspects, soils, sites, and altitudes in 

 which they have been cultivated Some of these variations are ex- 

 tremely curious, as in the case of seed, which in the same sort varies 

 from a smooth black naked grain, parting from the wool with a very 

 slight pull, to a distinct-looking form, covered with a short green or 

 brownish nap, to which the tufts of available fibre cling with more or 

 less tenacity. The celebrated Sea-island plant is the form taken by the 

 Barbadian type when transferred to the warm, moist climate, and rich 

 low-lying lands, on the Georgian coast and in the adjacent islands. The 

 fibre is long, strong, and of the highest excellence. Cultivated in Egypt 

 it retains its properties to a certain degree, is a good, useful, long cotton, 

 and is much used for the same purposes. The appearance of the plant is 

 slightly modified by the climate. 



Uplands, or short-stapled American (not Surat),now includes, according 

 to Boyle, the produce of the interior and upland country of Georgia and 

 Carolina, as well as of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee 

 — bowed Georgian as it was once called, from having been first cleaned 

 by the Indian contrivance of a bow and string, flicking the fibre from 

 the seed. Just now the fashionable sort is called the Mexican Gulf Hill 

 seed. I am indebted to the Cotton Supply Association for a sample of 

 this. Three seeds of it produced me three very different-looking plants. 

 One nearly approaching the type, with glabrous foliage much angled and 

 divided. Another with hirsute strong branches and more spreading 

 habit ; and a third with the most remarkable foliage of any I have 

 hitherto seen of its race ; the lobes, especially the central one, are so 

 long as to give the leaf almost the palmate appearance of the Indian 

 plant, and the individual lobes are also curiously divided. The seed was 

 peculiar and different from the rest in being very small and nearly clean 

 or naked. There is a sort called little Mexican or Petit Gulf; I think 

 this may be it. Venezuelan seed, also from the Association, resembled 

 this. The plants, however, were like the Gulf seed, but a little more 

 hairy. These were all sown very early this spring, but have, at present, 

 shown no signs of flowering. 



But the favourite staple of the Manchester men is produced by the 



