SHPT. 1906.] 



205 



tion. India, time after time, has imported the best cottons from abroad, and yet she 

 gets far the lowest price on the market, though her native cotton is the same cotton 

 as the common American, which sells for (id. against India's 3£d. 



To deal in brief with the way of selecting cotton : what we mainly want are 

 length, big yield, strength, freedom from disease and silkiness, the first two being 

 the most important. When the cotton bolls begin to burst all over the field, we 

 must go through it with a three inch measure, and pick out 175 bushes with the very 

 longest staple and with over 20 bolls on a bush, and free of disease ; then reject any 

 that have not the requisite strength or silkiness, and in this way, we shall probably 

 have about 150 bushes left, which should be marked with red rags, and have their 

 cotton separately collected and ginned, and will give enough seed for one acre in the 

 following year. Similar methods must be employed with rice, or any other field 

 crop, if we mean to keep up their standard. 



As a good local illustration of what may be done by selection, look at the 

 way the Java planters, by continually improving their cinchona barks, have killed 

 the Ceylon industry. Good Java barks now contain more than twice as much 

 quinine as good Ceylon barks, and the seed of good varieties was sold the other day 

 at £45 an ounce. 



