265 
COTTON EXPERIMENTS 
IN THE BOTANIC GARDENS, SINGAPORE. 
During the year 1904, the Botanic Gardens, Singapore, received 
from the Inspector-General of India, a large series of seeds of vari- 
ous cotton plants obtained through the agency of District Officers 
in various parrs of India. There were about 80 kinds in all. These 
were planted in the most suitable soil available in the Gardens, and 
carefully tended. The seed, in most cases, germinated well, but a 
few strains such as Nagpur, Griffin, Peterkin’s Long Staple, Haw- 
kin's improved, Trint’s big ball, and some others completely failed. 
But, as these wee nearly all in one set of beds, I attribute this 
' rather to the fault of the soil, than the seed. 
Of this set of Nagpur cottons, the best grower was Bourbon, but it 
failed to fruit sufficiently heavily. 
Nearly all the plants flowered well, but the fruiting proved a 
failure, the pods being destroyed by vermin before they were ripe. 
The Nagpur broad-leaved varieties were more severely attacked by 
the Ieafrollers than were the narrow-leaved forms ( Neglectum series) 
and were also more liable to attack by the red cotton bug, Dysderccus 
cingulatus. Of the Neglectum series, Braisa and Jalna yellow, made 
the best growth, but the pods produced were very small. 
Egyptian and American cottons grew fairly well, but suffered 
badly from pests, and I am inclined to think that the Sea-Island and 
Upland strains are most suitable for this country. 
I should not however recommend any one here, at least in the 
South of the Peninsula, to attempt to grow cotton commercially. 
The number of pests which attack the plant in this part of the 
country is very large indeed. 
A leaf-rolling caterpillar, and a small boring caterpillar attack- 
ing the shoots damage the vegetative organs severely. The fruit, as 
soon as it sets, is attacked by the :*ecl bug, a pink moth-caterpillar 
which devours the seeds, and a minute dipterous larva. These so 
utterly destroy the fruit that not one per cent, comes to maturity. 
Many plants though flowering well did not produce a single good 
pod and of many kinds I was unable to save a single seed, the 
pods being quite rather long before the seed Was ripe. Spraying 
with insecticides had little effect, Dysdercus destroyed one day thus, 
was quickly replaced by others which appeared from some more 
distant spot in a fewodays. One or two kinds of caterpillar hunting 
wasps were often at the bushes carrying off the leaf-rollers, but made 
little impression in their numbers. 
I had hoped that out of the numerous varieties sent from India, some 
might be found more resistant to insect pests than others, but though 
the narrow-leaved forms were less attacked by Ieafrollers than 
the broad-leaved ones, and owing to their narrower bracts less at- 
6//Z/ 
