178 USEFUL FIBER PLANTS OF THE WORLD. 



cultivated in India. It greatly resembles the G. herbaceum of India. but differs from 

 that species in that the latter has broader and more rounded leaves, and broader, 

 thinner, and deeper-cut bracteoles. This species is said to readily hybridize with 

 G. negJectum, and numerous species have been founded upon these cultural forms. 

 Among these hybrids are some of the most valuable of Indian cottons. The typical 

 forms of the foregoing species of cotton have their seed free from each other, but 

 there is another group in which the seeds of each cell are closely adherent in an oval 

 mass, from which appearance they are called '"kidney" cottons. Most, if not all. of 

 these species are tropical, and their presence in this country as anything more than 

 curiosities is highly improbable. The most important of them is G. brasiliense 

 Mac fad., and in addition to the fact of the seed adhering in clusters the species is an 

 absorbent plant with very large, 5 to 7 divaricate-lobed haves and very deeply 

 laciniate involucral bracts. The cottons of South America, known to the trade as 

 Pernambuco, Ceara, Santos, etc., are evidently not of this species, but belong to the 

 (r. Varbadense and G. herbaceum series. 



For the botanical descriptions of the several species, which have been omitted 

 here, the student is referred to Dr. "Walter H. Evan's complete account in The Cotton 

 Plant, previously mentioned, page 67. 



SURFACE Fiber. — The lint or fiber of cotton is the seed hairs which are found in the 

 fruit or boll of the plant after maturity. The value of the lint depends upon the 

 length of these seed hairs, and this is known in commercial parlance as the '•' staple.'' 

 Naturally, the "short staples" are less valuable than the "long staples." Upland 

 cotton is an example of the former: sea-island cotton of the latter. Seen longitudi- 

 nally, the fibers of cotton appear quite independent of each other: they are flat and 

 always more or less twisted, like a corkscrew. This last feature is quite character- 

 istic. The length of the fibers varies from 1 to 14- inches for long-stapled, and from 

 £ to £ inch for short-stapled. (See fig. 4, page 27, Introduction.) 



The world's cultivation. — Cotton in its several species and many varieties is a 

 product which belongs to all intertropical countries, for the plant has been so widely 

 distributed and has been in cultivation so long a time that in many of these coun- 

 tries it is considered indigenous. Spon gives the geographical parallels between 

 which cotton is usually cultivated as stretching in A-arying girdles between 36- north 

 latitude and 36° south latitude, though Dr. Evans places the parallels at 40 c or more 

 on either side of the equator, or to the isothermal line of 60° F. In this country, 

 latitude 37° north about represents the limit of economic growth. The production 

 of the world's cotton has been distributed in the following countries: 



The American Continent. — In the United States the upland-cotton belt extends from 

 southeast Virginia to Texas, and its distribution is mainly between the tide-water 

 district and the foothills of the Appalachian Mountain system. The deep alluvial 

 soils of the Mississippi Valley favor extension of cotton growing much farther north- 

 ward, from the sugar district of southern Louisiana to the southern border of Mis- 

 souri, including most of Arkansas and western Tennessee, while the higher elevation 

 of central and eastern Tennessee limits culture and diverts sharply the line of limita- 

 tion around the foothills of northwestern Georgia. Fifty years ago Mississippi, near 

 the western border of cultivation, had surpassed other States and produced nearly 

 a fourth of the product; now Texas, on the extreme west, yields one-third of a crop 

 doubled in volume. Except a very limited area in Virginia, Kentucky, Missouri, and 

 Oklahoma, cultivation is mainly conlined to suitable and comparatively limited dis- 

 tricts in North and South Carolina. Georgia, Florida, Alabama. Mississippi, Tennes- 

 see, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas. 



Mexico, prior to the conquest by Cortez, produced annually 116,000,000 pounds, 

 but the culture was abandoned in many sections under Spanish rule. In i860 the 

 industry received a stimulus on account of the war of the rebellion; since 1882 the 

 culture has been still further extended, until, in 1805, the output was 25,000,000 

 pounds. The State of Coahuila produces the larger portion of the cotton of Mexico. 

 The best cotton, however, is grown in the state of Guerrero, around Acapulco, and 



