8 
ing its value. The trees had, therefore, to be constantly watched, 
and the amount of labour required to collect the crop rendered the 
speculation unprofitable. The failure was attributed to peculiarity 
of climate, but it seems rather to have been owing to peculiarity of 
the perennial variety of cotton, which is liable to flower in tropical 
climates at all seasons of the year. This variety has long ceased 
to be cultivated as a staple product, on this very account. Former- 
ly it appears to have been the only known species, if it can be so 
c alled, for the annual variety now cultivated in the United Stales 
a nd elsewhere was orginally a perennial. 
A similar state of affairs may be witnessed in our immediate 
neighbourhood. Cotton is cultivated as a perennial in every island 
of the Archipelago as far to the eastward as New Guinea, but never 
with a view to a crop. The plants are scattered about the gardens 
of the natives, and are visited daily bv members of the family to 
collect any pods that may have opened, ft is only in Java, Bab. 
and Palembang (the latter was colonized from Java) that cotton is 
planted as an annual, and singularly enough these are the only 
countries that produced it in sufficient quantities to form an article 
of export, or of large domestic consumption. 
The introduction of the annual variety in Java was also the re- 
sult of necessity. The inhabitants of the plains had no means of 
^rowing cotton except on their rice lands, which are flooded during 
a portion of the year. The seeds are sown in June, after the rice 
crop has been gathered, and in November the lands are flooded 
and the plants destroyed, so that only four clear months are allowed 
for the collection of the crop from the time the seed is sown. Yet 
it is believed that more cotton' is thus grown in Java than in all the 
other islands of the Archipelago put together. 
When we find this useful plant adapting itself so readily to cir- 
cumstances, are we to suppose that the Straits Settlements, so 
highly favoured by nature, are denied participation in the fleecy 
harvest. It would be treason to think so until the annual variety 
has been tried and failed. The dry season which ended with last 
month (October) has surely been sufficiently decided for the col- 
lection of a cotton crop, and we have the authority of the Editor of 
this Journal (vol. II p. 1 1 2 ) to prove that this is in the ordinary 
course of events at Singapore. I submit that if seeds of the four- 
months-blowing Sea Island or “ Black Seed ” cotton are planted in 
any eligible spot in Singapore during the months of November to 
February inclusive, there is no peculiarity in the seasons here to 
prevent a full crop btbng gathered during the ensuing summer 
months. 
Rain may fall occasionally, but only in showers, and notin greater 
abundance than on the coast of Florida and Alabama during the 
cropping season. In October the plants must be uprooted, and the 
land prepared for fresh seed, and now comes the difficulty that has 
hitherto prevented the introduction of the finer descriptions of cot- 
ton in countries within the tropic. The plant is still in full bearing, 
