20 
THE COTTON ZONE OP THE WOELD. 
000,000 lbs. Of this amount '750,000,000 lbs. is used by 
tbe natives, tbe number of whom is 150,000,000. The 
remaining 250,000,000 lbs. is exported. This quantity 
would make '500,000 bales, American size. 
The thermometer at Calcutta ranges from 71° mean in 
January to 93° mean in May. 
The cotton cultivation extends from the extremity of 
the peninsula of Hindostan to the great Himalaya range. 
A longer drought than usual kills the cotton-plant ; too 
much rain rots it ; and if a shower falls at the season of 
harvest, insects attack the ripe pods, and the dampness dis- 
colors the fibre. 
7th. Sydney, Australia. — The cotton plant is here a 
perennial, the frost, except in unusually severe winters, not 
being sufficient to destroy it. Cotton has been picked 
from the same stalk five years in succession, the fourth 
year producing the largest crop ; a pound of clean cotton 
being then, in some instances, obtained from a single plant. 
The ordinary yield is a bale of 300 lbs. of clean cotton 
per acre. The seeds are planted in the latter part of Sep- 
tember and the early part of October ; the plants are in 
flower in December ; picking commences in February and 
continues until June. The soil and climate and all other 
physical causes are favorable to the profitable growth of 
this crop. Insects are not injurious. Nature seems to 
have designed this portion of the world for a cotton field 
of the most gigantic dimensions. The thermometer, dur- 
ing the cotton months, ranges from 60° to 100°. 
8th. Spezzia, Italy. — During the occupation of Italy by 
the French under the first Napoleon, it was one of his pro- 
jects to introduce the cultivation of the cotton plant ; but 
it failed generally throughout Northern Italy, and now is 
not known farther north than in some of the Papal States. 
