GOSSYPIUM  HERBACEUM. 
401 
ON  GOSSYPIUM  HERBACEUM. 
By  Robert  Battet,  of  Rome,  Georgia. 
(An  Inaugural  Essay  presented  to  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy.') 
This  plant,  belonging  to  the  natural  order  Malvaceae,  is  classed 
by  Loudon  under  Monadelphia  polyandria.  He  describes  it, 
"  leaves  5-lobed,  1  glandular  beneath  ;  lobes  round  mucronate, 
involucre  serrate ;  stem  smooth."  This  description,  although 
probably  true  to  nature  in  the  uncultivated  plant,  is  nevertheless 
very  faulty  when  applied  to  the  great  agricultural  staple,  cotton. 
A  more  strikingly  characteristic  one  will  be  found  in  Carson's 
Pereira,  edition  1854,  vol.  ii.  at  page  986.  This  doubtless  is 
the  species  which  yields  the  great  mass  of  the  cottons  exported 
to  Europe,  and  consumed  in  our  own  country  in  our  various  do- 
mestic fabrics,  and  which  is  known  to  the  trade  under  the  com- 
mercial technicality  of  Georgia  Uplands.  There  are  two  other 
commercial  varieties  probably  derived  from  different  species, 
known  as  Sea  Islands  and  Nankin.  The  former  is  perhaps  the  Gos- 
sypium  barbadense  of  Loudon,  and  of  the  Nankin  I  find  no  ac- 
count in  any  of  the  works  to  which  I  have  referred. 
As  an  article  of  trade,  the  Georgia  Upland  variety  is  by  far 
the  most  abundant  and  useful.  It  is  the  staple  from  which  all 
our  coarser  cotton  fabrics  are  manufactured  :  osnaburgs,  duck, 
sheetings,  shirtings  and  print  cloths,  Canton  flannels,  drillings, 
calicos,  muslins,  cordage,  &c,  &c. 
Cotton  occurs  in  the  trade  of  various  qualities  or  grades,  desig- 
nated as  "fully  fair,"  "fair,"  "  good  midlings,"  and  "stained." 
The  plant,  or  shrub  rather,  which  bears  the  cotton  lint,  attains  a 
height  of  ten  or  twelve  feet  under  favorable  circumstances, 
usually  an  average  of  say  five  feet.  It  blossoms  in  June  and 
July,  and  continues  this  flowering,  as  also  the  growth  of  the 
whole  plant,  until  arrested  by  the  winter  frost.  The  color  of  the 
flower  is  stated  in  the  books  to  be  yellow;  this  is  correct,  although 
they  are  frequently  to  be  seen  in  the  cotton  fields  of  any  shade, 
from  white  to  dark  brown,  passing  through  the  various  shades  of 
yellow  and  red,  not  unfrequently  variegated.  The  bud  which 
precedes  the  flower,  is  termed  by  the  planter  a  square,  but  is,  in 
fact,  triangular  in  shape  ;  the  calyx  being  three-lobed,  and  in- 
closing a  tripetalous  corolla.    The  picking  season  commences 
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