BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA. 
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constituted not a little to the marvellous perfection now attained in the art of 
photography. 
History of Cotton in the East. 
Yarieties of the cotton plant are produced in Africa, in the Levant, Egypt, 
the East Indies, North and South America, including of course the West Indies^ 
thus showing that no plant has so wide a field adapted to its cultivation. Some 
assert, that by far the finest cotton grows in the Presidency of Bengal, and the 
Coromandel coast. East Indies, but owing to careless cultivation, the produce is 
greatly inferior to the American sample. In Africa and Asia more than sixty dif- 
ferent varieties have been, it is said, discovered growing spontaneously. But 
though cotton seems to have been universally knowB. from the earliest periods, yet 
it is only within the memory of man, that it has. obtained its present important place 
in the commercial world. 
Cotton was both cultivated and manufactured; im India irr. the remotest anti- 
quity. Herodotus, who wrote about B. C. 445, makes mention of the manufacture' 
among the Indians, as if it were a well known branch of national industry. Near- 
chus, the Admiral to whom Alexander the Great intrusted (B. C. 327^ the survey 
of the River Indus, confirmed all that Herodotus had observed. Arrian, an Egyp- 
tian Greek, living in the first or second century, also notices the export of cotton 
from India. And some authorities state, that even now at the present day, India 
produces annually more of the raw material than the Southern States of America. 
Cotton indeed seems to have been generally known and used by all the nations of 
the East, as far back as history informs the inquirer, Strabo states that cotton, 
grew and cotton, cloths were manufactured in Susiana, at the head of the Persian 
Gulf, in his day — about A. D. 20. Pliny, about fifty years later, described the 
pla.nt (Gos&ypmm or Xylon) and its products. And yet still we do not find that it 
occupied in ancient times a place of any real importance among the varied wants- 
of man. 
Hindoos, Arabs and Persians, therefore, have without doubt, from time imme- 
morial, formed their clothing of cotton ; but it is also certain that the making was 
confined to household hands, and excited no manufacture beyond the lo-al demand. 
This custom of home production indeed still holds in the countries of the above 
mentioned nations, more particularly in India, where, even at tte present day, 
almost every Hindoo — or rather Ryot — family, has an enclosure for cotton plant- 
ing, from which is taken sufficient for the family's annual consumption ; the sur- 
plus being allowed to go to decay, nourishing the exhausted land. 
In China the cotton plant began to be cultivated for the first time, for general 
use, after the Tartar conquest. Great opposition was experienced from the wool 
