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without hesitation, that the plant bearing red or reddish 
cotton is merely a variety either of G. arhoreum or G. 
hirsutum. 
Mr. Thomas Clegg, of this city, who is familiar with the 
properties of the various kinds of cotton and well acquainted 
with their commercial value and places of growth, has 
kindly lent me some of his specimens for exhibition on this 
occasion, and in a communication received from him he has 
given me some information regarding Nankin cotton which 
will no doubt be of interest to the meeting. 
Mr. Clegg says : “ I found Nankin cotton abundantly at 
Malta, many parts of Tunis, and in great quantities on the 
West Coast of Africa. Dr. Livingstone has sent me many 
samples of it, and I have frequently had specimens of it 
from other, but always arid, dry, and hot parts of the world. 
The Maltese has however always been the best. It is very 
short in staple, coarse and of little value in itself, especially 
as so little of it is produced. Being high coloured, of course 
if used alone it would give a high peculiar colour to the 
cloth, and as mixing it with whiter cotton generally stripes 
and spoils the cloth, it is in very bad repute. In China and 
Japan it gets more dusky and dark and even lower in staple. 
On the West Coast of Africa it seems to be hybridized and 
modified in colour. The seed, when cleaned from the cotton, 
is generally only half clothed with the fibre, the other half 
being black. But whether entirely Nankin-coloured or a 
little whiter, it is always on that coast much longer in staple, 
and though rather coarse, still a good useful cotton. Indeed 
the generality of the West Coast Cotton is a nice cream- 
coloured cotton, a little higher than the old Demerara cotton 
used to be, and of staple on an average fully equal to Ameri- 
can bowed upland, or the lower class of New Orleans, and 
I hardly think can be classed as Nankin at all, though high- 
coloured. If it could be had in quantity it would, in my 
opinion, soon supersede all the lower qualities of American 
