clothes examined by the microscope and with chemical reagent in the hope that this question might be solved. The weight of the evidence seems to show that the burial wrappings from the early Egyptian tombs are linen but this does not necessarily imply that cotton may not have been used for other purposes while interdicted for use in burial by religious or other ritualistic regulations.

Whatever may have been the distribution of cotton prior to that time, we certainly find the conquest of India by ALEXANDER served to give great impetus to its spread, for PLINY and others writing about 400 years later, or near the beginning of the Christian Era, mention the cultivation of this important crop in many regions. It has since spread until now the cotton belt may be said to extend around the world, embracing 35 degrees of latitude on each side of the equator. Various modifications due to economic and climatic conditions are known to exist in this wide belt but of these we may speak in another place.

The genus Gossypium to which cotton belongs is separated from the other genera of the Malvacea by the presence of three, sometimes in cultivation four, leafy bracts that subtend the calyx, and by the seed being more or less covered with wool. These bracts are usually rather large and coalescent, their free ends being more or less dentate, lacinate, or sometimes nearly or quite entire.

It is when one undertakes to describe the species of Gossypium that real trouble begins. On account of their great variability the species are difficult of limitation and numerous attempts have been made to classify them. LINNAEUS described five species. LAMARCK added three to this number and POIRET four more. In 1824 DECANDOLLE enumerated 13 species in the Prodromus and ROXBURG added two more. Eight others were included with the above list by WALPERS, and AUGUSTINO TODARO, who published in 1877 a very exhaustive monograph of the genus, described 52 species with two more classed as uncertain. In that monumental work of systematic botanical

bibliography, Index Kewensis, 42 species are recognized, very few of which are of economic importance, and mention is made of 88 others that have been reduced to synonyms, most of them being synonyms of species in cultivation. Dr. BUCHANON HAMILTON Sought to simplify the matter by reducing all cultivated form to three species, G. album if the seed bore an inner layer of very short, closely adherent lint, as is the case with the Indian and the American Upland cottons, and G. nigrum if the seed is black after removing the long, fine lint, as is the case with Sea Island and Pernambuco cottons. A third species, G. croceum, depended upon the tawny character of the lint. This very simple classification would have proved most excellent had it not been for the fact that the black seeded cottons would under some conditions develop an abundant inner lint, and tawny cottons, commonly called Nankeen, are not uncommon colors for the lint of both of the other species. The great variability and tendency to hybridize make it very difficult to determine as to what species a given plant may belong. No cultivated plant responds so quickly to ameliorated conditions of soil, climate, and cultivation as does the cotton plant and to this fact is due much of the confusion as to species and varieties.

The two great types of cultivated cottons are: those having the individual seed free from one another, and those in which the seed of each cell are more or less adherent in a reniform mass. From this character this group is commonly referred to as the kidney cottons. For the most part the plants of this group are perennial and are grown in tropical or subtropical regions. The plants are pruned each year after the second or third and continue to yield profitably for from five to eight years. In this country only the herbaceous cottons are grown and your attention is especially invited to this series, leaving aside the interesting group of arborescent forms, the growing period of which is too long for our climate. The two classes of cotton grown in this country are Sea Island and the Upland, popular names derived to some extent from the regions in which they are cultivated. These are usually said to have been derived

from the two species, Gossypium barbadense and G. herbaceum respectively,

The celebrated Sea Island cotton that is grown to such superior excellency along the South Carolina and Georgia and Florida coasts is by almost unanimous consent believed to be derived from G. barbadense.

The source of the upland cottons of this country and the vast series of forms grown in India is of less certainty and this is one of the puzzles that will perhaps never be solved. Most of the American botanists have considered the various forms of upland cotton to have been derived from Gossypium herbaceum, while many European and Asiatic students of the subject maintain that G. herbaceum is an Asiatic species. There has been described a species, G. hirsutum, which is now generally considered a synonym of G. herbaceum. This is said to have been described from America and some botanists propose it as the original of the American short staple cottons as distinguished from the long staple or Sea Island. If this view be accepted and the synonymy recogized, we have an example of simultaneous evolution of a species in opposite portions of the globe. The writer is inclined to believe that what is generally called G. herbaceum is not a definite species but it has been developed by cultivation and selection from perhaps a number of species and it represents not a well marked species but a group of hybrids and forms more or less closely related. Nor is he willing at this time to agree with ROYLE that G. barbadense is the source of all American cottons. The differences between the long and short. staple cottons are so marked as to seem to be fundamental. It is true that numerous hybrids between the two have been produced but it requires more than change of location and method of cultivation to overcome the radical differences between the short staple upland cotton with its green seed and closely adherent fuzz, and the long staple Sea Island with its smooth, black seed.

The weight of evidence seems to indicate that Sea Island Cotton originated in some of the lesser Islands of the West Indies and

it appears from some old records that it was brought from the island Anguilla to the coast of the Southeastern United States in 1789. This was the Gossypium barbadense first described by PLUNKENET in 1695 and the name was retained by LINNÆUS. Whatever its origin, it is the most excellent of all cottons and has been introduced under various names into nearly every cotton growing region, being known as Barbadoes cotton, Mauritius cotton, Bourbon cotton, etc., dependent upon the place whence the seed was obtained. It has been successfully introduced into Algeria and Egypt, and for some purposes the Egyptian varieties developed from American seed compete very successfully with the product of our coast country. According to HUMBOLDT, Sea Island cotton requires a climate ranging from 680 to 82° F., and the best conditions for its growth are found below 34° North latitude. The upland cottons can be grown at higher latitudes, a summer temperature of 73° to 75° and a winter temperature of about 46° or 48° F. being its limiting condition of temperature. Cotton is economically grown in the United States as far north as 37° N. L., 40° in Europe, and 46° in Astrachan. It has been successfully grown in the United States as far north as Pennsylvania and Delaware, but the conditions are such as to make it no longer profitable. It has been said that at the time of the Revolution the home grown cotton was sufficiently abundant in Pennsylvania to supply the domestic needs of the state, and as late as 1864 upland cotton. was one of the most profitable crops on the eastern shore of Maryland. As regards elevation, HUMBOLDT states that cotton is grown at an elevation of 9,000 feet in the tropics. In Mexico at 19° 22' N. L., it flourishes at 5,500 feet and in the Himalayas it has been grown at an elevation of 4,000 feet. However, the best cotton in the world, the Sea Island, comes from the low lying islands along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia and Florida, where the land is but a few feet above sea level and where at times the tides and storms drive salt water over the fields. In Egypt the best product comes from the Delta region, while the Mississippi Delta is also famous for the quality of its

product. It is often claimed that the quality of cotton improves in proportion to its nearness to the sea. That more than proximity to the sea is required is shown by ROYLE, who says that the Pernambuco cotton is improved as the cultivation recedes towards the interior. He also states that latitude cannot affect the quality to any appreciable degree, for about the poorest cotton in the market comes from Java where it is grown nearly under the equator, while that of Guiana and Brazil, of nearly the same latitude, ranks second in quality. The product grown on the island of Jamaica at about 20° N. L., is far inferior to that of Demerara nearer the equator. In India, in closely contiguous provinces, the character of the staple varies widely, and as has already been said, the best in the market comes from South Carolina and Georgia near the northern limit of profitable growth.

According to HEUZE the time required for the maturity of a cotton crop is divided about as follows: From seeding time to flowering, New Orleans 80 to 90 days, Sea Island 100 to 110 days; from flowering to maturity, New Orleans 70 to 80 days and Sea Island about 80 days, making the total growing period of from five to six months. The same authority says that the best average daily temperature for the growth of the cotton is from 60° to 68° F. during the period of from germination to flowering and from 68° to 78° F. from flowering to maturity. Dr. WIGHT, in accounting for the very manifest inferiority of Indian cottons, as compared with American fiber when grown from the same lot of seed, says it is due to the fact that under the conditions in which cotton is grown in India there is a constantly diminishing temperature instead of an increasing one during the period of greatest growth.

Too much moisture is detrimental to the production of a good crop, in that it tends to greatly increase the vegetative growth of the plant and causes too great production of bolls for perfect development. On the other hand a drouth is equally as harmful in its effect in reducing the number of bolls set. Different varieties vary in the degree of moisture and dryness best suited