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COTTON FLANT. 
crowned with three or four thick stigmas. The 
capsule is the size of a small egg, of a spherical or 
rather oval figure, divided into three or four valves, 
and having as many chambers full of green or black 
seeds surrounded by a white, yellowish, or reddish 
down. This down is the cotton, and is of different 
degrees of length and fineness. When the down is 
ripe it bursts the valves, and spreads itself over the 
sides of the capsule. 
Cultivation of Cotton in Europe. 
The Gossypium herbaceum is cultivated in the 
island of Malta, in Sicily, in a part of Calabria, and 
in some of the isles in the Archipelago. It has 
likewise been attempted to raise the plant in France; 
and from the success which the agriculturists met 
in their first essays, there can be no doubt of the 
possibility of effecting it in Provence, in Dauphine, 
and in Languedoc. 
This species of cotton succeeds, as we have just 
remarked, in Sicily, in the island of Malta, and in 
Calabria. The manner in which it is cultivated in 
these three countries is much the same. The ter- 
ritory of Terra Nuova , which stretches along the 
shore to the west of Syracuse, in the valley of Noto, 
is the part of Sicily more particularly destined to 
the cultivation of cotton. The land which they 
employ for this purpose is of a good quality, and 
free from noisome weeds ; they till the ground five 
or six times from November to April, and water it 
in May. When it is sufficiently moistened they 
