(Gossypium) is a vegetable down of exquisite softness, with beautifully fine fibres, and is an indigenous product of all intertropical regions. Linnaeus subdivided the cotton plant into five species:—1, Gossypium herbaceum; 2, G. arboreum; 3, G. hirsutum; 4, G. religiosum; 5, G. barbadense.

Other authorities have enumerated as many as ten species, but for all practical purposes the division into three classes will be sufficiently minute. The varieties are exceedingly numerous; yet of those most widely diffused, herbaceous cotton, shrub cotton, and tree cotton, need only be especially referred to. The most useful cotton is the herbaceous, which is an annual plant chiefly cultivated in the United States and in the East Indies. It grows from two to five feet in height, is rich in foliage, and its fibrous fruit is preceded by flowers, of white or pale yellow colour, like those of the convolvulus. As the flowers fade, a pod, or capsule, Cotton is formed of the size of a small walnut, containing the fibres of cotton, and as the pod ripens it expands, and the snow-white fibres burst forth ready to be gathered.

In the United States the seed of the herbaceous cotton is sown generally in the months of March and April, and its marketable fruit is usually gathered in the period commencing with August and terminating with the year. Bowdoin and Orleans cottons constitute the great productions of the United States, and are recognised in the English and European markets as "American cotton." These cottons are chiefly cultivated in the great valley of the Mississippi, the fields of its growth now extending to the Texas. The cultivation of cotton in the United States is most scientifically and industriously pursued, and is attended with highly profitable results, the value of the crop being little less than thirty millions of pounds sterling. It is expected that in 1854 the entire crop will amount to three and a-half millions of bags, of more than 400 lbs. each. But the skill of the American planter has been most conspicuous in the production of fine sea islands cotton. The seed of this cotton, which is also an annual and herbaceous plant, was obtained in 1786, in the Bahama Islands, where it had been introduced from the West Indies, and was first cultivated in Georgia. The small islands which extend along the American coast from Charleston to Savannah were found, from their sandy soil and contiguity to the sea, to be admirably adapted to the production of exquisitely fine, long, and strong stapled cotton. This cotton soon acquired great and deserved celebrity. A great demand arose for it; but from the limited extent of the islands upon which it can be grown, and the expense attending its cultivation, it can only be supplied at a comparatively high price. Hence the production of this cotton was not susceptible of indefinite extension like the shorter stapled cottons of the United States; and from the beginning to the middle of the present century the total yearly amount of the crop has not greatly varied, the annual yield averaging about ten millions of pounds weight. From the circumstance of the seed of this cotton having been first introduced into Georgia, it was consequently called Georgia cotton, though its cultivation had only been successful upon the sea-coast of that state. Its celebrity, however, caused it to be planted upon the high lands of Georgia, where it was found to degenerate; but still the quality, though shortened in staple, was found to be of a desirable class, and it acquired the name of uplands, or bowed Georgia cotton, whilst the same seed yielded the famed sea islands cotton. Here it may be observed that a humid atmosphere and a sandy soil seem most conducive to the production of good useful cotton; but for the growth of very fine and long stapled cotton an impregnation of salt both in the soil and in the air appears to be indispensable.

Without the energy of the American planter, it is difficult to conceive the possibility of the cotton trade of England and of the world attaining the extent and importance which it now possesses. As the colonies of Great Britain—the West Indies in particular—possessed all the natural advantages of soil and climate for producing cotton to an extent much beyond the probable consumption of the United Kingdom, it might reasonably have been inferred that the colonial interests alone would have stimulated the cultivation and production of cotton to supply the certain and increasing home demands of the constantly enlarging manufactories. Whether the fatality of protection to the English colonies, maladministration of colonial affairs, or supineness on the part of the colonists themselves, produced the indifference which caused an article of increasing importance like cotton to be neglected when remunerative markets were opening for indefinite supplies of it—may be wisely inquired into, not to remedy the past, but for the purpose of ascertaining how far a new and profitable direction may be given for the future to colonial labours and efforts; for the stigma will remain, that whilst arts and inventions were being developed at home which became the sources of great national wealth, the cultivation of the material on which to exercise the skill and labour of the mother country had to be sought and obtained from a foreign source.

In the British East Indies the cultivation and the manufacture of cotton have certainly existed longer than in any other country. For five centuries before the Christian era, cotton was largely used in the domestic manufactures of India, and the clothing of the Hindus then consisted chiefly of garments made from that vegetable product. Earliest in possession of the herbaceous cotton plant, the natives of India were enabled to manipulate its fibres, and to establish a cotton-manufacturing industry which has remained almost unchanged to the present time. More than two thousand years before Europe or England conceived the idea of applying modern industry to the manufacture of cotton, India had matured a system of hand-spinning, weaving, and dyeing, which during that vast period of time received no recorded improvement. With a plant indigenous to the soil, and a people remarkable for intelligence, when Europe was in a state of barbarism, it is wonderful that no approximation was made to the mechanical manufacturing operations of modern times, and still more strange that the agricultural production of cotton should not within that period have been improved and considerably enlarged. The cotton of India during its known existence can only be regarded as a material for manufacture greatly inferior to the like productions of other countries. India unquestionably possesses soil, climate, and all the requisite elements from nature for the cultivation of cotton to an almost boundless extent, and of a quality which might be most useful and acceptable in the manufactures of Europe, and even of America. During a series of years the weight of cotton grown in the East Indies and consumed in Great Britain may have been one-tenth of the whole, whilst the value cannot be estimated at more than one-twentieth of the total cost of home-consumed raw cotton. The British West Indies supply only small portions of the cotton required by the manufacturers of the United Kingdom, though the quality of the cotton there produced is excellent; and would be very largely bought and consumed if it were largely supplied. For a considerable time the British colonies have not supplied more than one-twentieth part of the British consumption of cotton, and yet in the possession of Great Britain there exists a greater extent of land suited to the growth of cotton than in any other dominion. At Port Natal cotton of excellent quality might be grown to any reasonable extent; and in Australia, cotton equal to the finest of the fine might be produced to an almost indefinite amount.

Brazil is an extensive cotton-growing country, and sends steady supplies of it to the European markets. The quality of its cotton is everywhere highly esteemed.

Persia, Spain, Italy, Malta, and the adjacent countries, are all capable of producing excellent cotton; but in Africa there are probably greater undeveloped resources for the cultivation of cotton than can be found in any other portion of the globe.

The example of Egypt is a great lesson for the governors of those countries whose agricultural resources remain undeveloped. In 1821 Mehemet Ali conceived the possibility of effectually cultivating cotton, and succeeded. From that year to the present time large supplies of that useful and now indispensable raw material have been obtained from Egypt, to the great convenience of the British manufacturer, who has found the quality second only to the sea islands cotton of the United States.

The herbaceous cotton plant unquestionably exhibits all the desirable qualities of cotton applicable to manufactures, as proved by the productions of the United States and of the East Indies. The cottons produced in the West