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Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cosway, Richard" to "Coucy, Le Châtelain de"

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Cosway, Richard" to "Coucy, Le Châtelain de"

Author: Various


        
Release date: May 8, 2010 [eBook #32294]

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland and
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, 11TH EDITION, "COSWAY, RICHARD" TO "COUCY, LE CHÂTELAIN DE" ***




Produced by Marius Masi, Don Kretz, Juliet Sutherland and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net









Transcriber's notes:

(1) Numbers following letters (without space) like C2 were originally
      printed in subscript. When letters are subscripted, they are
      preceded by an underscore, like C_n.

(2) Characters following a carat (^) were originally printed in
      superscript.

(3) Side-notes were relocated to function as titles of their respective
      paragraphs.

(4) The following typographical errors have been corrected:

    COTTINGTON: "He signed the surrender of Oxford in July 1646, and
      being excepted from the indemnity retired abroad." 'indemnity'
      amended from 'idemnity'.

    COTTON: "Also, inside the young bolls which had been pierced a
      similar proliferation or growth of the tissue was set up ..."
      'proliferation' amended from 'poliferation'.

    COTTON: "Cotton Buying Company, which, constituted originally of
      twenty to thirty limited cotton-spinning companies ..." 'thirty'
      amended from 'thrity'.

    COTTON: "Though there are local rivalries there is nothing in
      competitive division to compare with the northern and southern
      sections in America ..." 'competitive' amended from 'cempetitive'.

    COTTON: "a good many small manufacturers exist who have little
      capital and are practically financed by their agents or customers."
      'financed' amended from 'financied'.

    COTTON MANUFACTURE: "It is calculated by Professor Hasbach that the
      daily wages of spinners are about 5/10 to 6/10 at Oldham ..."
      '6/10' amended from '6/'.

    COTTON-SPINNING MACHINERY: "Open reeling forms lease, and seven of
      these are united in one hank by a lease band which retains the
      divisions." 'lease' amended from 'leas'.




          ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

  A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE
           AND GENERAL INFORMATION

              ELEVENTH EDITION


            VOLUME VII, SLICE V

              Cosway to Coucy




Articles in This Slice:


  COSWAY, RICHARD                   COTTER
  COTA DE MAGUAQUE, RODRIGO         COTTESWOLD HILLS
  COTE-D'OR                         COTTET, CHARLES
  COTES, ROGER                      COTTII REGNUM
  COTES-DU-NORD                     COTTIN, MARIE
  COTGRAVE, RANDLE                  COTTINGTON, FRANCIS COTTINGTON
  COTHEN                            COTTON (Anglo-Indian administrators)
  COTMAN, JOHN SELL                 COTTON, CHARLES
  COTONEASTER                       COTTON, GEORGE EDWARD LYNCH
  COTOPAXI                          COTTON, JOHN
  COTRONE                           COTTON, SIR ROBERT BRUCE
  COTTA (German publishers)         COTTON
  COTTA, BERNHARD VON               COTTON MANUFACTURE
  COTTA, GAIUS AURELIUS             COTTON-SPINNING MACHINERY
  COTTABUS                          COTYS
  COTTBUS                           COUCH, DARIUS NASH
  COTTENHAM, CHARLES PEPYS          COUCY, LE CHATELAIN DE




COSWAY, RICHARD (c. 1742-1821), English miniature painter, was baptized
in 1742; his father was master of Blundell's school, Tiverton, where
Cosway was educated, and his uncle mayor of that town. He it was who, in
conjunction with the boy's godfather, persuaded the father to allow
Richard to proceed to London before he was twelve years old, to take
lessons in drawing, and undertook to support him there. On his arrival,
the youthful artist won the first prize given by the newly founded
Society of Arts, of the money value of five guineas. He went to Thomas
Hudson for his earliest instruction, but remained with him only a few
months, and then attended William Shipley's drawing class, where he
remained until he began to work on his own account in 1760. He was one
of the earliest members of the Royal Academy, Associate in 1770 and
Royal Academician in 1771. His success in miniature painting is said to
have been started by his clever portrait of Mrs Fitzherbert, which gave
great satisfaction to the prince of Wales, and brought Cosway his
earliest great patron. He speedily became one of the most popular
artists of the day, and his residence at Schomberg House, Pall Mall, was
a well-known aristocratic rendezvous. In 1791 he removed to Stratford
Place, where he lived in a state of great magnificence till 1821, when
after selling most of the treasures he had accumulated he went to reside
in Edgware Road. He died on the 4th of July 1821, when driving in a
carriage with his friend Miss Udney. He was buried in Marylebone New
church.

He married in 1781 Maria Hadfield, who survived him many years, and died
in Italy in January 1838, in a school for girls which she had founded,
and which she had attached to an important religious order devoted to
the cause of female education, known as the Dame Inglesi. She had been
created a baroness of the Empire on account of her devotion to female
education by the emperor Francis I. in 1834. Her college still exists,
and in it are preserved many of the things which had belonged to her and
her husband.

Cosway had one child who died young. She is the subject of one of his
most celebrated engravings. He painted miniatures of very many members
of the royal family, and of the leading persons who formed the court of
the prince regent. Perhaps his most beautiful work is his miniature of
Madame du Barry, painted in 1791, when that lady was residing in Bruton
Street, Berkeley Square. This portrait, together with many other
splendid works by Cosway, came into the collection of Mr J. Pierpont
Morgan. There are many miniatures by this artist in the royal collection
at Windsor Castle, at Belvoir Castle and in other important collections.
His work is of great charm and of remarkable purity, and he is certainly
the most brilliant miniature painter of the 18th century.

  For a full account of the artist and his wife, see _Richard Cosway,
  R.A._, by G. C. Williamson (1905).     (G. C. W.)




COTA DE MAGUAQUE, RODRIGO (d. c. 1498), Spanish poet, who flourished
towards the end of the 15th century, was born at Toledo. Little is known
of him save that he was of Jewish origin. The _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_,
the _Coplas del Provincial_, and the first act of the _Celestina_ have
been ascribed to him on insufficient grounds. He is undoubtedly the
author of the _Dialogo entre el amor y un viejo_, a striking dramatic
poem first printed in the _Cancionero general_ of 1511, and of a
burlesque epithalamium written in 1472 or later. He abjured Judaism
about the year 1497, and is believed to have died shortly afterwards.

  See "Epithalame burlesque," edited by R. Foulche-Delbosc, in the
  _Revue hispanique_ (Paris, 1894), i. 69-72; A. Bonilla y San Martin,
  _Anales de la literatura espanola_ (Madrid, 1904), pp. 164-167.




COTE-D'OR, a department of eastern France, formed of the northern region
of the old province of Burgundy, bounded N. by the department of Aube,
N.E. by Haute-Marne, E. by Haute-Saone and Jura, S. by Saone-et-Loire,
and W. by Nievre and Yonne. Area, 3392 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 357,959. A
chain of hills named the Plateau de Langres runs from north-east to
south-west through the centre of the department, separating the basin of
the Seine from that of the Saone, and forming a connecting-link between
the Cevennes and the Vosges mountains. Extending southward from Dijon is
a portion of this range which, on account of the excellence of its
vineyards, bears the name of Cote-d'Or, whence that of the department.
The north-west portion of the department is occupied by the calcareous
and densely-wooded district of Chatillonais, the south-west by spurs of
the granitic chain of Morvan, while a wide plain traversed by the Saone
extends over the eastern region. The Chatillonais is watered by the
Seine, which there takes its rise, and by the Ource, both fed largely by
the _douix_ or abundant springs characteristic of Burgundy. The Armancon
and other affluents of the Yonne, and the Arroux, a tributary of the
Loire, water the south-west.

The climate of Cote-d'Or is temperate and healthy; the rainfall is
abundant west of the central range, but moderate, and, in places,
scarce, in the eastern plain. Husbandry flourishes, the wealth of the
department lying chiefly in its vineyards, especially those of the
Cote-d'Or, which comprise the three main groups of Beaune, Nuits and
Dijon, the latter the least renowned of the three. The chief cereals are
wheat, oats and barley; potatoes, hops, beetroot, rape-seed, colza and a
small quantity of tobacco are also produced. Sheep and cattle-raising is
carried on chiefly in the western districts. The department has
anthracite mines and produces freestone, lime and cement. The
manufactures include iron, steel, nails, tools, machinery and other iron
goods, paper, earthenware, tiles and bricks, morocco leather goods,
biscuits and mustard, and there are flour-mills, distilleries, oil and
vinegar works and breweries. The imports of the department are
inconsiderable, coal alone being of any importance; there is an active
export trade in wine, brandy, cereals and live stock and in manufactured
goods. The Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway serves the department, its
main line passing through Dijon. The canal of Burgundy, connecting the
Saone with the Yonne, has a length of 94 m. in the department, while
that from the Marne to the Saone has a length of 24 m.

Cote-d'Or is divided into the arrondissements of Dijon, Beaune,
Chatillon and Semur, with 36 cantons and 717 communes. It forms the
diocese of the bishop of Dijon, and part of the archiepiscopal province
of Lyons and of the 8th military region. Dijon is the seat of the
educational circumscription (_academie_) and court of appeal to which
the department is assigned. The more noteworthy places are Dijon, the
capital, Beaune, Chatillon, Semur, Auxonne, Flavigny and Citeaux, all
separately treated. St Jean de Losne, at the extremity of the Burgundy
canal, is famous for its brave and successful resistance in 1636 to an
immense force of Imperialists. Chateauneuf has a chateau of the 15th
century, St Seine-l'Abbaye, a fine Gothic abbey church, and Saulieu, a
Romanesque abbey church of the 11th century. The chateau of Bussy
Rabutin (at Bussy-le-Grand), founded in the 12th century, has an
interesting collection of pictures made by Roger de Rabutin, comte de
Bussy, who also rebuilt the chateau. Montbard, the birthplace of the
naturalist Buffon, has a keep of the 14th century and other remains of a
castle of the dukes of Burgundy. The remarkable Renaissance chapel
(1536) of Pagny-le-Chateau, belonging to the chateau destroyed in 1768,
contains the tomb of Jean de Vienne (d. 1455) and that of Jean de Longwy
(d. 1460) and Jeanne de Vienne (d. 1472), with alabaster effigies. At
Fontenay, near Marmagne, a paper-works occupies the buildings of a
well-preserved Cistercian abbey of the 12th century. At Vertault there
are remains of a theatre and other buildings marking the site of the
Gallo-Roman town of Vertilium.




COTES, ROGER (1682-1716), English mathematician and philosopher, was
born on the 10th of July 1682 at Burbage, Leicestershire, of which place
his father, the Rev. Robert Cotes, was rector. He was educated at
Leicester school, and afterward at St Paul's school, London. Proceeding
to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1699, he obtained a fellowship in
1705, and in the following year was appointed Plumian professor of
astronomy and experimental philosophy in the university of Cambridge. He
took orders in 1713; and the same year, at the request of Dr Richard
Bentley, he published the second edition of Newton's Principia with an
original preface. He died on the 5th of June 1716, leaving unfinished a
series of elaborate researches on optics, and a large amount of
unpublished manuscript. He contributed two memoirs to the _Philosophical
Transactions_, one, "Logometria," which discusses the calculation of
logarithms and certain applications of the infinitesimal calculus, the
other, a "Description of the great fiery meteor seen on March 6th,
1716." After his death his papers were collected and published by his
cousin and successor in the Plumian chair, Dr Robert Smith, under the
title _Harmonia Mensurarum_ (1722). This work included the "Logometria,"
the trigonometrical theorem known as "Cotes' Theorem on the Circle" (see
TRIGONOMETRY), his theorem on harmonic means, subsequently developed by
Colin Maclaurin, and a discussion of the curves known as "Cotes'
Spirals," which occur as the path of a particle described under the
influence of a central force varying inversely as the cube of the
distance. In 1738 Dr Robert Smith published Cotes' _Hydrostatical and
Pneumatical Lectures_, a work which was held in great estimation. The
exceptional genius of Cotes earned encomiums from both his
contemporaries and successors; Sir Isaac Newton said, "If Mr Cotes had
lived, we should have known something."




COTES-DU-NORD, a maritime department of the north-west of France, formed
in 1790 from the northern part of the province of Brittany, and bounded
N. by the English Channel, E. by the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, S.
by Morbihan, and W. by Finistere. Pop. (1906) 611,506. Area, 2786 sq. m.
In general conformation, Cotes-du-Nord is an undulating plateau
including in its more southerly portion three well-marked ranges of
hills. A granitic chain, the Monts du Mene, starting in the south-east
of the department runs in a north-westerly direction, forming the
watershed between the rivers running respectively to the Channel and the
Atlantic Ocean. Towards its western extremity this chain bifurcates to
form the Montagnes Noires in the south-west and the Montagne d'Arree in
the west of the department. The rivers of the Channel slope are the
Rance, Arguenon, Gouessan, Gouet, Trieux, Treguier and Leguer, while the
Blavet, Meu, Oust and Aulne belong to the southern slope. Off the coast,
which is steep, rocky and much indented, are the Sept-Iles, Brehat and
other small islands. The principal bays are those of St Malo and St
Brieuc.

The climate is mild and not subject to extremes; in the west it is
especially humid. Agriculture is more successful on the coast, where
seaweed can be used as a fertilizer, than in the interior. Cereals are
largely grown, wheat, oats and buck-wheat being the chief crops.
Potatoes, flax, mangels, apples, plums, cherries and honey are also
produced. Pasture and various kinds of forage are abundant, and there is
a large output of milk and butter. The horses of the department are in
repute. It produces slate, building-stone, lime and china-clay.
Flour-mills, saw-mills, sardine factories, tanneries, iron-works,
manufactories of polish, boat-building yards, and rope-works employ many
of the inhabitants, and cloth, agricultural implements and nails are
manufactured. The chief imports are coal, wood and salt. Exports include
agricultural products (eggs, butter, vegetables, &c.), horses, flax and
fish. The chief commercial ports are Le Legue and Paimpol; and Paimpol
also equips a large fleet for the Icelandic fisheries. The coast fishing
is important and large quantities of sardines are preserved. The
department is served by the Ouest-Etat railway; its chief waterway is
the canal from Nantes to Brest which traverses it for 73 m.

Cotes-du-Nord is divided into the five arrondissements of St Brieuc,
Dinan, Guingamp, Lannion and Loudeac, which contain 48 cantons and 390
communes. Bas Breton is spoken in the arrondissements of Guingamp and
Lannion, and in part of those of Loudeac and St Brieuc. The department
belongs to the ecclesiastical province, the academie (educational
division), and the appeal court of Rennes, and in the region of the X.
army corps. St Brieuc, Dinan, Guingamp, Lamballe, Paimpol and Treguier,
the more noteworthy towns, are separately treated. Extensive remains of
an abbey of the Premonstratensian order, dating chiefly from the 13th
century, exist at Kerity; and Lehon has remains of a priory, which dates
from the same period. The department is rich in interesting churches,
among which those of Ploubezre (12th, 14th and 16th centuries),
Perros-Guirec (12th century), Plestin-les-Greves (16th century) and
Lanleff (12th century) may be mentioned. The church of St Mathurin at
Moncontour, which is a celebrated place of pilgrimage, contains fine
stained glass of the 16th century, and the mural paintings of the chapel
of Kermaria-an-Isquit near Plouha, which belongs to the 13th and 14th
centuries, are celebrated. Near Lannion (pop. 5336), itself a
picturesque old town, is the ruined castle of Tonquedec, built in the
14th century and sometimes known as "the Pierrefonds of Brittany," owing
to its resemblance to the more famous castle. At Corseul are a temple
and other Roman remains.




COTGRAVE, RANDLE (?-1634), English lexicographer, came of a Cheshire
family, and was educated at Cambridge, entering St John's College in
1587. He became secretary to Lord Burghley, and in 1611 published his
French-English dictionary (2nd ed., 1632), a work of real historical
importance in lexicography, and still valuable in spite of such errors
as were due to contemporary want of exact scholarship.




COTHEN, or KOTHEN, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Anhalt on the
Ziethe, at the junction of several railway lines, 42 m. N.W. of Leipzig
by rail. Pop. (1905) 22,978. It consists of an old and a new town with
four suburbs. The former palace of the dukes of Anhalt-Cothen, in the
old town, has fine gardens and contains collections of pictures and
coins, the famous ornithological collection of Johann Friedrich Naumann
(1780-1857), and a library of some 20,000 volumes. Of the churches the
Lutheran Jakobskirche (called the cathedral), a Gothic building with
some fine old stained glass, is noteworthy. Besides the usual classical
and modern schools (Gymnasium and Realschule) Cothen possesses a
technical institute, a school of gardening and a school of forestry. The
industries include iron-founding and the manufacture of agricultural and
other machinery, malt, beet-root sugar, leather, spirits, &c.; a
tolerably active trade is carried on in grain, wool, potatoes and
vegetables. Among others, there is a monument to Sebastian Bach, who was
music director here from 1717 to 1723.

In the 10th century Cothen was a Slav settlement, which was captured and
destroyed by the German king Henry I. in 927. By the 12th century it had
secured town rights and become a considerable centre of trade in
agricultural produce. In 1300 it was burned by the margrave of Meissen.
In 1547 the town was taken from its prince, Wolfgang (a cadet of the
house of Anhalt), who had joined the league of Schmalkalden, and given
by the emperor Charles V., with the rest of the prince's possessions, to
the Spanish general and painter, Felipe Ladron y Guevara (1510-1563),
from whom it was, however, soon repurchased. Hahnemann, the founder of
homoeopathy, lived and worked in Cothen. From 1603 to 1847 Cothen was
the capital of the principality, later duchy, of Anhalt-Cothen.




COTMAN, JOHN SELL (1782-1842), English landscape-painter and etcher, son
of a well-to-do silk mercer, was born at Norwich on the 16th of May
1782. He showed a talent for art and was sent to London to study, where
he became the friend of Turner, T. Girtin and other artists. He first
exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800. In 1807 he went back to Norwich
and joined the Norwich Society of Artists, of which in 1811 he became
president. In 1825 he was made an associate of the Society of Painters
in Water-colours; in 1834 he was appointed drawing-master at King's
College, London; and in 1836 he was elected a member of the Institute of
British Architects. He died in London on the 24th of July 1842. Cotman's
work was not considered of much importance in his own day, and his
pictures only procured small prices; but he now ranks as one of the
great figures of the Norwich school. He was a fine draughtsman, and a
remarkable painter both in oil and water-colour. One of his paintings is
in the National Gallery. His fine architectural etchings, published in a
series of volumes, the result of tours in Norfolk and Normandy, are
valuable records of his interest in archaeology. He married early in
life, and had five children, his sons, Miles Edmund (1810-1858) and
Joseph John (1814-1878), both becoming landscape-painters of merit; and
his younger brother Henry's son, Frederic George Cotman (b. 1850), the
water-colour artist, continued the family reputation.




COTONEASTER, a genus of the rose family (Rosaceae), containing about
twenty species of shrubs and small trees, natives of Europe, North
Africa and temperate Asia. C. _vulgaris_ is native on the limestone
cliffs of the Great Orme in North Wales. Several species are grown in
shrubberies and borders, or as wall plants, mainly for their clusters of
bright red or yellow berry-like fruits. Plants are easily raised by
seeds, cuttings or layers, and grow well in ordinary soil.




COTOPAXI, a mountain of the Andes, in Ecuador, South America, 35 m.
S.S.E. of Quito, remarkable as the loftiest active volcano in the world.
The earliest outbursts on record took place in 1532 and 1533; and since
then the eruptions have been both numerous and destructive. Among the
most important are those of 1744, 1746, 1766, 1768 and 1803. In 1744 the
thunderings of the volcano were heard at Honda on the Rio Magdalena,
about 500 m. distant; in 1768 the quantity of ashes ejected was so great
that it covered all the lesser vegetation as far as Riobamba; and in
1803 Humboldt reports that at the port of Guayaquil, 160 m. from the
crater, he heard the noise day and night like continued discharges of a
battery. There were considerable outbursts in 1851, 1855, 1856, 1864 and
1877. In 1802 Humboldt made a vain attempt to scale the cone, and
pronounced the enterprise impossible; and the failure of Jean Baptiste
Boussingault in 1831, and the double failure of M. Wagner in 1858,
seemed to confirm his opinion. In 1872, however, Dr Wilhelm Reiss
succeeded on the 27th and 28th of November in reaching the top; in the
May of the following year the same feat was accomplished by Dr A.
Stubel, and he was followed by T. Wolf in 1877, M. von Thielmann in 1878
and Edward Whymper in 1880.

Cotopaxi is frequently described as one of the most beautiful mountain
masses of the world, rivalling the celebrated Fujiyama of Japan in its
symmetry of outline, but overtopping it by more than 7000 ft. It is more
than 15,000 ft. higher than Vesuvius, over 7000 ft. higher than
Teneriffe, and nearly 2000 ft. higher than Popocatepetl. Its slope,
according to Orton, is 30 deg., according to Wagner 29 deg., the
north-western side being slightly steeper than the south-eastern. The
apical angle is 122 deg. 30'. The snowfall is heavier on the eastern
side of the cone which is permanently covered, while the western side is
usually left bare, a phenomenon occasioned by the action of the moist
trade winds from the Atlantic. Its height according to Whymper is 19,613
ft., and its crater is 2300 ft. in diameter from N. to S., 1650 ft. from
E. to W., and has an approximate depth of 1200 ft. It is bordered by a
rim of trachytic rock, forming a black coronet above the greyish
volcanic dust and sand which covers its sides to a great depth. Whymper
found snow and ice under this sand. On the southern slope, at a height
of 15,059 ft., is a bare cone of porphyritic andesite called _El
Picacho_, "the beak," or _Cabeza del Inca_, "the Inca's head," with dark
cliffs rising fully 1000 ft., which according to tradition is the
original summit of the volcano blown off at the first-known eruption of
1532. The summit of Cotopaxi is usually enveloped in clouds; and even in
the clearest month of the year it is rarely visible for more than eight
or ten days. Its eruptions produce enormous quantities of pumice, and
deep layers of mud, volcanic sand and pumice surround it on the plateau.
Of the air currents about and above Cotopaxi, Wagner says (_Naturw.
Reisen im trop. Amerika_, p. 514): "On the Tacunga Plateau, at a height
of 8000 Paris feet, the prevailing direction of the wind is meridional,
usually from the south in the morning, and frequently from the north in
the evening; but over the summit of Cotopaxi, at a height of 18,000 ft.,
the north-west wind always prevails throughout the day. The
gradually-widening volcanic cloud continually takes a south-eastern
direction over the rim of the crater; at a height, however, of about
21,000 ft. it suddenly turns to the north-west, and maintains that
direction till it reaches a height of at least 28,000 ft. There are thus
from the foot of the volcano to the highest level attained by its
smoke-cloud three quite distinct regular currents of wind."




COTRONE (anc. _Croto, Crotona_), a seaport and episcopal see on the E.
coast of Calabria, Italy, in the province of Catanzaro, 37 m. E.N.E. of
Catanzaro Marina by rail, 143 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) town,
7917; commune, 9545. It has a castle erected by the emperor Charles V.
and a small harbour, which even in ancient times was not good, but
important as the only one between Taranto and Reggio. It exports a
considerable quantity of oranges, olives and liquorice.




COTTA, the name of a family of German publishers, intimately connected
with the history of German literature. The Cottas were of noble Italian
descent, and at the time of the Reformation the family was settled in
Eisenach in Thuringia.

JOHANN GEORG COTTA (1) (1631-1692), the founder of the publishing house
of J. G. Cotta, married in 1659 the widow of the university bookseller,
Philipp Braun, in Tubingen, and took over the management of his
business, thus establishing the firm which was subsequently associated
with Cotta's name. On his death, in 1692, the undertaking passed to his
only son, Johann Georg (2); and on his death in 1712, to the latter's
eldest son, also named Johann Georg (3), while the second son, Johann
Friedrich (see below), became the distinguished theologian.

Although the eldest son of Johann Georg (3), Christoph Friedrich Cotta
(1730-1807), established a printing-house to the court at Stuttgart, the
business languished, and it was reserved to his youngest son, JOHANN
FRIEDRICH, FREIHERR COTTA VON COTTENDORF (1764-1832), who was born at
Stuttgart on the 27th of April 1764, to restore the fortunes of the
firm. He attended the gymnasium of his native place, and was originally
intended to study theology. He, however, entered the university of
Tubingen as a student of mathematics and law, and after graduating spent
a considerable time in Paris, studying French and natural science, and
mixing with distinguished literary men. After practising as an advocate
in one of the higher courts, Cotta, in compliance with his father's
earnest desire, took over the publishing business at Tubingen. He began
in December 1787, and laboured incessantly to acquire familiarity with
all the details. The house connexions rapidly extended; and, in 1794,
the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, of which Schiller was to be editor, was
planned. Schiller was compelled to withdraw on account of his health;
but his friendship with Cotta deepened every year, and was a great
advantage to the poet and his family. Cotta awakened in Schiller so warm
an attachment that, as Heinrich Doring tells us in his life of Schiller
(1824), when a bookseller offered him a higher price than Cotta for the
copyright of _Wallenstein_, the poet firmly declined it, replying "Cotta
deals honestly with me, and I with him." In 1795 Schiller and Cotta
founded the _Horen_, a periodical very important to the student of
German literature. The poet intended, by means of this work, to infuse
higher ideas into the common lives of men, by giving them a nobler human
culture, and "to reunite the divided political world under the banner of
truth and beauty." The _Horen_ brought Goethe and Schiller into intimate
relations with each other and with Cotta; and Goethe, while regretting
that he had already promised _Wilhelm Meister_ to another publisher,
contributed the _Unterhaltung deutscher Ausgewanderten_, the _Roman
Elegies_ and a paper on Literary Sansculottism. Fichte sent essays from
the first, and the other brilliant German authors of the time were also
represented. In 1798 the _Allgemeine Zeitung_ appeared at Tubingen,
being edited first by Posselt and then by Huber. Soon the editorial
office of the newspaper was transferred to Stuttgart, in 1803 to Ulm,
and in 1810 to Augsburg; it is now in Munich. In 1799 Cotta entered on
his political career, being sent to Paris by the Wurttemberg estates as
their representative. Here he made friendships which proved very
advantageous for the _Allgemeine Zeitung_. In 1801 he paid another visit
to Paris, also in a political capacity, when he carefully studied
Napoleon's policy, and treasured up many hints which were useful to him
in his literary undertakings. He still, however, devoted most of his
attention to his own business, and, for many years, made all the entries
into the ledger with his own hand. He relieved the tedium of almost
ceaseless toil by pleasant intercourse with literary men. With Schiller,
Huber, and Gottlieb Konrad Pfeffel (1736-1809) he was on terms of the
warmest friendship; and he was also intimate with Herder, Schelling,
Fichte, Richter, Voss, Hebel, Tieck, Therese Huber, Matthisson, the
brothers Humboldt, Johann Muller, Spittler and others, whose works he
published in whole or in part. In the correspondence of Alexander von
Humboldt with Varnhagen von Ense we see the familiar relations in which
the former stood to the Cotta family. In 1795 he published the
_Politischen Annalen_ and the _Jahrbucher der Baukunde_, and in 1798 the
_Damenalmanach_, along with some works of less importance. In 1807 he
issued the _Morgenblatt_, to which Schorn's _Kunstblatt_ and Menzel's
_Literaturblatt_ were afterwards added. In 1810 he removed to Stuttgart;
and from that time till his death he was loaded with honours. State
affairs and an honourable commission from the German booksellers took
him to the Vienna congress; and in 1815 he was deputy-elect at the
Wurttemberg diet. In 1819 he became representative of the nobility; then
he succeeded to the offices of member of committee and (1824)
vice-president of the Wurttemberg second chamber. He was also appointed
Prussian _Geheimrat_, and knight of the order of the Wurttemberg crown;
King William I. of Wurttemberg having already revived the ancient
nobility in his family by granting him the patent of Freiherr (Baron)
Cotta von Cottendorf. Meanwhile such publications as the _Polytechnische
Journal_, the _Hesperus_, the _Wurttembergische Jahrbucher_, the
_Hertha_, the _Ausland_, and the _Inland_ issued from the press. In
1828-1829 appeared the famous correspondence between Schiller and
Goethe. Cotta was an unfailing friend of young struggling men of talent.
In addition to his high standing as a publisher, he was a man of great
practical energy, which flowed into various fields of activity. He was a
scientific agriculturist, and promoted many reforms in farming. He was
the first Wurttemberg landholder to abolish serfdom on his estates. In
politics he was throughout his life a moderate liberal. In 1824 he set
up a steam printing press in Augsburg, and, about the same time, founded
a literary institute at Munich. In 1825 he started steamboats, for the
first time, on Lake Constance, and introduced them in the following year
on the Rhine. In 1828 he was sent to Berlin, on an important commission,
by Bavaria and Wurttemberg, and was there rewarded with orders of
distinction at the hands of the three kings. He died on the 29th of
December 1832 leaving a son and a daughter as coheirs.

His son, JOHANN GEORG (4), FREIHERR COTTA VON COTTENDORF (1796-1863),
succeeded to the management of the business on the death of his father,
and was materially assisted by his sister's husband, Freiherr Hermann
von Reischach. He greatly extended the connexions of the firm by the
purchase, in 1839, of the publishing business of G. J. Goschen in
Leipzig, and in 1845 of that of Vogel in Landshut; while, in 1845,
"Bible" branches were established at Stuttgart and Munich. He was
succeeded by his younger son, Karl, and by his nephew (the son of his
sister), Hermann Albert von Reischach. Under their joint partnership,
the before-mentioned firms in Leipzig and Landshut, and an artistic
establishment in Munich passed into other hands, leaving on the death of
Hermann Albert von Reischach, in 1876, Karl von Cotta the sole
representative of the firm, until his death in 1888. In 1889 the firm of
J. G. Cotta passed by purchase into the hands of Adolf and Paul Kroner,
who took others into partnership. In 1899 the business was converted
into a limited liability company.

  See Albert Schaffle, _Cotta_ (1895); _Verlags-Katalog der J. G.
  Cotta'schen Buchhandlung, Nachfolger_ (1900); and Lord Goschen's _Life
  and Times of G. J. Goschen_ (1903).

JOHANN FRIEDRICH COTTA (1701-1779), the theologian, was born on the 12th
of March 1701, the son of Johann Georg Cotta (2). After studying
theology at Tubingen he began his public career as lecturer in Jena
University. He then travelled in Germany, France and Holland, and, after
residing several years in London, became professor at Tubingen in 1733.
In 1736 he removed to the chair of theology in the university of
Gottingen, which had been instituted as a seat of learning, two years
before, by George II. of England, in his capacity as elector of Hanover.
In 1739, however, he returned, as extraordinary professor of theology,
to his Alma Mater, and, after successively filling the chairs of
history, poetry and oratory, was appointed ordinary professor of
theology in 1741. Finally he died, as chancellor of Tubingen University,
on the 31st of December 1779. His learning was at once wide and
accurate; his theological views were orthodox, although he did not
believe in strict verbal inspiration. He was a voluminous writer. His
chief works are his edition of Johann Gerhard's _Loci Theologici_
(1762-1777), and the _Kirchenhistorie des Neuen Testaments_ (1768-1773).




COTTA, BERNHARD VON (1808-1879), German geologist, was born in a
forester's lodge near Eisenach, on the 24th of October 1808. He was
educated at Freiberg and Heidelberg and from 1842 to 1874 he held the
professorship of geology in the Bergakademie of Freiberg. Botany at
first attracted him, and he was one of the earliest to use the
microscope in determining the structure of fossil plants. Later on he
gave his attention to practical geology, to the study of ore-deposits,
of rocks and metamorphism; and he was regarded as an excellent teacher.
His _Rocks classified and described: a Treatise on Lithology_
(translated by P. H. Lawrence, 1866) was the first comprehensive work on
the subject issued in the English language, and it gave great impetus to
the study of rocks in Britain. He died at Freiberg on the 14th of
September 1879.

  PUBLICATIONS.--_Geognostische Wanderungen_ (1836-1838); _Grundriss der
  Geognosie und Geologie_ (1846); _Geologische Briefe aus den Alpen_
  (1850); _Praktische Geologie_ (1852); _Geologische Bilder_ (1852, ed.
  4, 1861); _Die Gesteinslehre_ (1855, ed. 2, 1862).




COTTA, GAIUS AURELIUS (c. 124-73 B.C.), Roman statesman and orator. In
92 he defended his uncle P. Rutilius Rufus, who had been unjustly
accused of extortion in Asia. He was on intimate terms with the tribune
M. Livius Drusus, who was murdered in 91, and in the same year was an
unsuccessful candidate for the tribunate. Shortly afterwards he was
prosecuted under the _lex Varia_, directed against all who had in any
way supported the Italians against Rome, and, in order to avoid
condemnation, went into voluntary exile. He did not return till 82,
during the dictatorship of Sulla. In 75 he was consul, and excited the
hostility of the optimates by carrying a law that abolished the Sullan
disqualification of the tribunes from holding higher magistracies;
another law _de judiciis privatis_, of which nothing is known, was
abrogated by his brother. In 74 Cotta obtained the province of Gaul, and
was granted a triumph for some victory of which we possess no details;
but on the very day before its celebration an old wound broke out, and
he died suddenly. According to Cicero, P. Sulpicius Rufus and Cotta were
the best speakers of the young men of their time. Physically incapable
of rising to passionate heights of oratory, Cotta's successes were
chiefly due to his searching investigation of facts; he kept strictly to
the essentials of the case and avoided all irrelevant digressions. His
style was pure and simple. He is introduced by Cicero as an interlocutor
in the _De oratore_ and _De natura deorum_ (iii.), as a supporter of the
principles of the New Academy. The fragments of Sallust contain the
substance of a speech delivered by Cotta in order to calm the popular
anger at a deficient corn-supply.

  See Cicero, _De oratore_, iii. 3, _Brutus_, 49, 55, 90, 92; Sallust,
  _Hist. Frag._; Appian, _Bell. Civ._ i. 37.

His brother, LUCIUS AURELIUS COTTA, when praetor in 70 B.C. brought in a
law for the reform of the jury lists, by which the judices were to be
eligible, not from the senators exclusively as limited by Sulla, but
from senators, equites and _tribuni aerarii_. One-third were to be
senators, and two-thirds men of equestrian census, one-half of whom must
have been _tribuni aerarii_, a body as to whose functions there is no
certain evidence, although in Cicero's time they were reckoned by
courtesy amongst the equites. In 66 Cotta and L. Manlius Torquatus
accused the consuls-elect for the following year of bribery in connexion
with the elections; they were condemned, and Cotta and Torquatus chosen
in their places. After the suppression of the Catilinarian conspiracy,
Cotta proposed a public thanksgiving for Cicero's services, and after
the latter had gone into exile, supported the view that there was no
need of a law for his recall, since the law of Clodius was legally
worthless. He subsequently attached himself to Caesar, and it was
currently reported that Cotta (who was then quindecimvir) intended to
propose that Caesar should receive the title of king, it being written
in the books of fate that the Parthians could only be defeated by a
king. Cotta's intention was not carried out in consequence of the murder
of Caesar, after which he retired from public life.

  See Cicero, Orelli's _Onomasticon_; Sallust, _Catiline_, 18;
  Suetonius, _Caesar_, 79; Livy, _Epit._ 97; Vell. Pat. ii. 32; Dio
  Cassius xxxvi. 44, xxxvii. 1.




COTTABUS (Gr. [Greek: kottabos]), a game of skill for a long time in
great vogue at ancient Greek drinking parties, especially in the 4th and
5th centuries B.C. It is frequently alluded to by the classical writers
of the period, and not seldom depicted on ancient vases. The object of
the player was to cast a portion of wine left in his drinking cup in
such a way that, without breaking bulk in its passage through the air,
it should reach a certain object set up as a mark, and there produce a
distinct noise by its impact. Both the wine thrown and the noise made
were called [Greek: latax]. The thrower, in the ordinary form of the
game, was expected to retain the recumbent position that was usual at
table, and, in flinging the cottabus, to make use of his right hand
only. To succeed in the aim no small amount of dexterity was required,
and unusual ability in the game was rated as high as corresponding
excellence in throwing the javelin. Not only was the cottabus the
ordinary accompaniment of the festal assembly, but at least in Sicily a
special building of a circular form was sometimes erected so that the
players might be easily arranged round the basin, and follow each other
in rapid succession. Like all games in which the element of chance found
a place, it was regarded as more or less ominous of the future success
of the players, especially in matters of love; and the excitement was
sometimes further augmented by some object of value being staked on the
event.

Various modifications of the original principle of the game were
gradually introduced, but for practical purposes we may reckon two
varieties, (1) In the [Greek: Kottabos di oxybaphon] shallow saucers
([Greek: oxybapha]) were floated in a basin or mixing-bowl filled with
water; the object was to sink the saucers by throwing the wine into
them, and the competitor who sank the greatest number was considered
victorious, and received the prize, which consisted of cakes or
sweetmeats. (2) [Greek: Kottabos kataktos][1] is not so easy to
understand, although there is little doubt as to the apparatus. This
consisted of a [Greek: rhabdos] or bronze rod; a [Greek: plastinx], a
small disk or basin, resembling a scale-pan; a larger disk ([Greek:
lekanis]); and (in most cases) a small bronze figure called [Greek:
manes]. The discovery (by Professor Helbig in 1886) of two sets of
actual apparatus near Perugia and various representations on vases help
to elucidate the somewhat obscure accounts of the method of playing the
game contained in the scholia and certain ancient authors who, it must
not be forgotten, wrote at a time when the game itself had become
obsolete, and cannot therefore be looked to for a trustworthy
description of it.

The first specimen of the apparatus found at Perugia resembles a
candelabrum on a base, tapering towards the top, with a blunt end, on
which the small disk (found near the rod), which has a hole near the
edge and is slightly hollow in the middle, could be balanced. At about a
third of the height of the rod is a large disk with a hole in the centre
through which the rod runs; in a socket at the top is a small bronze
figure, with right arm and right leg uplifted. In the second specimen
there is no large disk, and the figure is holding up what is apparently
a rhyton or drinking-horn.

According to Prof. Helbig in _Mittheilungen des deutschen
archaologischen Instituts_ (Romische Abtheilung i., 1886) three games
were played with this apparatus. In the first the smaller disk was
placed on the top of the rod, and the object of the player was to
dislodge it with a cast of the wine, so that it would fall with a
clatter on the larger disk below. In the second (as in the third) the
bronze figure was used; the smaller disk was placed above the figure,
upon which it fell when hit, and thence on to the larger disk below. In
the third, there was no smaller disk; the wine was thrown at the figure,
and fell on to the larger disk underneath. Another supposed variety, in
which two scales were balanced in such a manner that the weight of the
liquid cast into either scale caused it to dip down and touch the top of
an image placed under each, probably had no real existence, but is due
to a confusion of the [Greek: plastinx] with a scale-pan by reason of
its shape. The game appears to have been of Sicilian origin, but it
spread through Greece from Thessaly to Rhodes, and was especially
fashionable at Athens. Dionysius, Alcaeus, Anacreon, Pindar,
Bacchylides, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Antiphanes,
make frequent and familiar allusion to the [Greek: kottabos]; but in the
writers of the Roman and Alexandrian period such reference as occurs
shows that the fashion had died out. In Latin literature it is almost
entirely unknown.

  The most complete treatise on the subject is C. Sartori's _Das
  Kottabos-Spiel der alten Griechen_ (1893), in which a full
  bibliography of ancient and modern authorities is given. English
  readers may be referred to an article by A. Higgins on "Recent
  Discoveries of the Apparatus used in playing the Game of Kottabos"
  (_Archaeologia_, li. 1888); see also "Kottabos" in Daremberg and
  Saglio's _Dictionnaire des antiquites_, and L. Becq de Fouquieres,
  _Les Jeux des anciens_ (1873).


FOOTNOTE:

  [1] The epithet [Greek: kataktos] (let down) may refer to
    the rod, which might be raised or lowered as required; to the lower
    disk, which might be moved up and down the stem; to the moving up and
    down of the scales, in the supposed variety of the game mentioned
    below.




COTTBUS, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Spree, 72
m. S.E. of Berlin by the main railway to Gorlitz, and at the
intersection of the lines Halle-Sagan and Grossenhain-Frankfort-on-Oder.
Pop. (1905) 46,269. It has four Protestant churches, a Roman Catholic
church and a synagogue. The chief industry of the town is the
manufacture of cloth, which has flourished here for centuries and now
employs more than 6000 hands. Wool-spinning, cotton-spinning and the
manufacture of tobacco, machinery, beer, brandy, &c., are also carried
on. The town is also a considerable trading centre, and is the seat of a
chamber of commerce and of a branch of the Imperial Bank (_Reichsbank_).
In the Stadtwald, close to the town, is a women's hospital for diseases
of the lungs, a government institution in connexion with the state
system of insurance against incapacity and old age. At Branitz, a
neighbouring village, are the magnificent chateau and park of Prince
Puckler-Muskau.

At one time Cottbus formed an independent lordship of the Empire, but in
1462 it passed by the treaty of Guben to Brandenburg. From 1807 to 1813
it belonged to the kingdom of Saxony.




COTTENHAM, CHARLES CHRISTOPHER PEPYS, 1st EARL OF (1781-1851), lord
chancellor of England, was born in London on the 29th of April 1781. He
was the second son of Sir William W. Pepys, a master in chancery, who
was descended from John Pepys, of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire, a
great-uncle of Samuel Pepys, the diarist. Educated at Harrow and Trinity
College, Cambridge, Pepys was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in
1804. Practising at the chancery bar, his progress was extremely slow,
and it was not till twenty-two years after his call that he was made a
king's counsel. He sat in parliament, successively, for Higham Ferrars
and Malton, was appointed solicitor-general in 1834, and in the same
year became master of the rolls. On the formation of Lord Melbourne's
second administration in April 1835, the great seal was for a time in
commission, but eventually Pepys, who had been one of the commissioners,
was appointed lord chancellor (January 1836) with the title of Baron
Cottenham. He held office until the defeat of the ministry in 1841. In
1846 he again became lord chancellor in Lord John Russell's
administration. His health, however, had been gradually failing, and he
resigned in 1850. Shortly before his retirement he had been created
Viscount Crowhurst and earl of Cottenham. He died at Pietra Santa, in
the duchy of Lucca, on the 29th of April 1851.

Both as a lawyer and as a judge, Lord Cottenham was remarkable for his
mastery of the principles of equity. An indifferent speaker, he
nevertheless adorned the bench by the soundness of his law and the
excellence of his judgments. As a politician he was somewhat of a
failure, while his only important contribution to the statute-book was
the Judgments Act 1838, which amended the law for the relief of
insolvent debtors.

The title of earl of Cottenham descended in turn to two of the earl's
sons, Charles Edward (1824-1863), and William John (1825-1881), and then
to the latter's son, Kenelm Charles Edward (b. 1874).

  AUTHORITIES.--Campbell, _Lives of the Lord Chancellors_ (1869); E.
  Foss, _The Judges of England_ (1848-1864); E. Manson, _Builders of our
  Law_ (1904); J. B. Atlay, _The Victorian Chancellors_ (1906).




COTTER, COTTAR, or COTTIER, a word derived from the Latin _cota_, a cot
or cottage, and used to describe a man who occupies a cottage and
cultivates a small plot of land. This word is often employed to
translate the _cotarius_ of Domesday Book, a class whose exact status
has been the subject of some discussion, and is still a matter of doubt.
According to Domesday the _cotarii_ were comparatively few, numbering
less than seven thousand, and were scattered unevenly throughout
England, being principally in the southern counties; they were occupied
either in cultivating a small plot of land, or in working on the
holdings of the _villani_. Like the _villani_, among whom they were
frequently classed, their economic condition may be described as "free
in relation to every one except their lord."

  See F. W. Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_ (Cambridge, 1897); and
  P. Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_ (Oxford, 1892).




COTTESWOLD HILLS, or COTSWOLDS, a range of hills in the western midlands
of England. The greater part lies in Gloucestershire, but the system
covered by the name also extends into Worcestershire, Warwickshire,
Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Somersetshire. It extends on a line from N.E.
to S.W., forming a part of the great Oolitic belt extending through the
English midlands. On the west the hills overlook the vales of Evesham,
Gloucester and Berkeley (valleys of the Worcestershire Avon and the
Severn), with a bold escarpment broken only by a few abrupt spurs, such
as Bredon hill, between Tewkesbury and Evesham. On the east they slope
more gently towards the basins of the upper Thames and the Bristol Avon.
The watershed lies close to the western line, except where the Stroud
valley, with the Frome, draining to the Severn, strikes deep into the
heart of the hills. The principal valleys are those of the Windrush,
Lech, Coln and Churn, feeders of the Thames, the Thames itself, and the
Bristol Avon. The last, wherein lie Bath and Bristol, forms the southern
boundary of the Cotteswolds; the northern is formed by the valleys of
the Evenlode (draining to the Thames) and the Stour (to the
Worcestershire Avon), with the low divide between them. The crest-line
from Bath at the south to Meon Hill at the north measures 57 m. The
breadth varies from 6 m. in the south to 28 towards the north, and the
area is some 300 sq. m. The features are those of a pleasant sequestered
pastoral region, rolling plateaus or wolds and bare uplands alternating
with deep narrow valleys, well wooded and traversed by shallow, rapid
streams. The average elevation is about 600 ft., but Cleeve Cloud above
Cheltenham in the Vale of Gloucester reaches 1134 ft., and Broadway
Hill, in the north, 1086 ft. These heights command splendid views over
the rich vales towards the distant hills of Herefordshire and the Forest
of Dean. The picturesque village of Broadway at the foot of the hill of
that name is much in favour with artists.

In the soil of the hill country is so much lime that a liberal supply of
manure is required. With this good crops of barley and oats are
obtained, and even of wheat, if the soil is mixed with clay. But the
poorest land of the hill country affords excellent pasturage for sheep,
the staple commodity of the district; and the sainfoin, which grows
wild, yields abundantly under cultivation. The Cotteswolds have been
famous for the breed of sheep named from them since the early part of
the 15th century, a breed hardy and prolific, with lambs that quickly
put on fleece, and become hardened to the bracing cold of the hills,
where vegetation is a month later than in the vales. Improved by
judicious crossing with the Leicester sheep, the modern Cotteswold has
attained high perfection of weight, shape, fleece and quality. An
impulse was given to Cotteswold farming by the chartering in 1845 of the
Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester.

A number of small market-towns or large villages lie on the outskirts of
the hills, but in the inner parts of the district villages are few. The
"capital of the Cotteswolds" is Cirencester, in the east. In the north
is Chipping Campden, its great Perpendicular church and the picturesque
houses of its wide street commemorating the wealth of its wool-merchants
between the 14th and 17th centuries. Near this town, in the parish of
Weston-sub-Edge, Robert Dover, an attorney, founded the once famous
Cotteswold games early in the 17th century. Horse-racing and coursing
were included with every sort of athletic exercise from quoits and
skittles to wrestling, cudgels and singlestick. The games were
suppressed by act of parliament in 1851.

  See _Proceedings of the Cotteswold Naturalists' Field Club, passim_;
  W. H. Hutton, _By Thames and Cotswold_ (London, 1903).




COTTET, CHARLES (1863-   ), French painter, was born at Puy. He studied
at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and under Puvis de Chavannes and Roll. He
travelled and painted in Egypt, Italy, and on the Lake of Geneva, but he
made his name with his sombre and gloomy, firmly designed, severe and
impressive scenes of life on the Brittany coast. His signal success was
achieved by his painting of the triptych, "_Au pays de la mer_," now at
the Luxembourg museum. The Lille gallery has his "Burial in Brittany."




COTTII REGNUM, a district in the north of Liguria, including a
considerable part of the important road which led over the pass (6119
ft.) of the Alpis Cottia (Mont Genevre) into Gaul. Whether Hannibal
crossed the Alps by this route is disputed, but it was certainly in use
about 100 B.C. (see PUNIC WARS). In 58 B.C. Caesar met with some
resistance on crossing it, but seems afterwards to have entered into
friendly relations with Donnus, the king of the district; he must have
used it frequently, and refers to it as the shortest route. Donnus's son
Cottius erected the triumphal arch at his capital Segusio, the modern
Susa, in honour of Augustus. Under Nero, after the death of the last
Cottius, it became a province under the title of "Alpes Cottiae," being
governed by a _procurator Augusti_, though it still kept its old name
also.




COTTIN, MARIE [called SOPHIE] (1770-1807), French novelist, _nee_
Risteau (not Ristaud), was born in Paris in 1770. At seventeen she
married a Bordeaux banker, who died three years after, when she retired
to a house in the country at Champlan, where she spent the rest of her
life. In 1799 she published anonymously her _Claire d'Albe_. _Malvina_
(1801) was also anonymous; but the success of _Amelie Mansfield_ (1803)
induced her to reveal her identity. In 1805 appeared _Mathilde_, an
extravagant crusading story, and in 1806 she produced her last tale, the
famous _Elisabeth, ou les exiles de Siberie_, the subject of which was
treated later with an admirable simplicity by Xavier de Maistre.
Sainte-Beuve asserted that she committed suicide on account of an
unfortunate attachment. This story is, however, unauthenticated. She
died at Champlan (Seine et Oise) on the 25th of April 1807.

  A complete edition of her works, with a notice by A. Petitot, was
  published, in five volumes, in 1817.




COTTINGTON, FRANCIS COTTINGTON, BARON (1578-1652), English lord
treasurer and ambassador, was the fourth son of Philip Cottington of
Godmonston in Somersetshire. According to Hoare, his mother was Jane,
daughter of Thomas Biflete, but according to Clarendon "a Stafford
nearly allied to Sir Edward Stafford," through whom he was recommended
to Sir Charles Cornwallis, ambassador to Spain, becoming a member of his
suite and acting as English agent on the latter's recall, from 1609 to
1611. In 1612 he was appointed English consul at Seville. Returning to
England, he was made a clerk of the council in September 1613. His
Spanish experience rendered him useful to the king, and his bias in
favour of Spain was always marked. He seems to have promoted the Spanish
policy from the first, and pressed on Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador,
the proposal for the Spanish in opposition to the French marriage for
Prince Charles. He was a Roman Catholic at least at heart, becoming a
member of that communion in 1623, returning to Protestantism, and again
declaring himself a Roman Catholic in 1636, and supporting the cause of
the Roman Catholics in England. In 1616 he went as ambassador to Spain,
making in 1618 James's proposal of mediation in the dispute with the
elector palatine. After his return he was appointed secretary to the
prince of Wales in October 1622, and was knighted and made a baronet in
1623. He strongly disapproved of the prince's expedition to Spain, as an
adventure likely to upset the whole policy of marriage and alliance, but
was overruled and chosen to accompany him. His opposition greatly
incensed Buckingham, and still more his perseverance in the Spanish
policy after the failure of the expedition, and on Charles's accession
Cottington was through his means dismissed from all his employments and
forbidden to appear at court. The duke's assassination, however, enabled
him to return. On the 12th of November 1628 he was made a privy
councillor, and in March 1629 appointed chancellor of the exchequer. In
the autumn he was again sent ambassador to Spain; he signed the treaty
of peace of the 5th of November 1630, and subsequently a secret
agreement arranging for the partition of Holland between Spain and
England in return for the restoration of the Palatinate. On the 10th of
July 1631 he was created Baron Cottington of Hanworth in Middlesex.

In March 1635 he was appointed master of the court of wards, and his
exactions in this office were a principal cause of the unpopularity of
the government. He was also appointed a commissioner for the treasury,
together with Laud. Between Cottington and the latter there sprang up a
fierce rivalry. In these personal encounters Cottington had nearly
always the advantage, for he practised great reserve and possessed great
powers of self-command, an extraordinary talent for dissembling and a
fund of humour. Laud completely lacked these qualities, and though
really possessing much greater influence with Charles, he was often
embarrassed and sometimes exposed to ridicule by his opponent. The aim
of Cottington's ambition was the place of lord treasurer, but Laud
finally triumphed and secured it for his own nominee, Bishop Juxon, when
Cottington became "no more a leader but meddled with his particular
duties only."[1] He continued, however, to take a large share in public
business and served on the committees for foreign, Irish and Scottish
affairs. In the last, appointed in July 1638, he supported the war, and
in May 1640, after the dismissal of the Short Parliament, he declared it
his opinion that at such a crisis the king might levy money without the
Parliament. His attempts to get funds from the city were unsuccessful,
and he had recourse instead to a speculation in pepper. He had been
appointed constable of the Tower, and he now prepared the fortress for a
siege. In the trial of Strafford in 1641 Cottington denied on oath that
he had heard him use the incriminating words about "reducing this
kingdom." When the parliamentary opposition became too strong to be any
longer defied, Cottington, as one of those who had chiefly incurred
their hostility, hastened to retire from the administration, giving up
the court of wards in May 1641 and the chancellorship of the exchequer
in January 1642. He rejoined the king in 1643, took part in the
proceedings of the Oxford parliament, and was made lord treasurer on the
3rd of October 1643. He signed the surrender of Oxford in July 1646, and
being excepted from the indemnity retired abroad. He joined Prince
Charles at the Hague in 1648, and became one of his counsellors. In
1649, together with Hyde, Cottington went on a mission to Spain to
obtain help for the royal cause, having an interview with Mazarin at
Paris on the way. They met, however, with an extremely ill reception,
and Cottington found he had completely lost his popularity at the
Spanish court, one cause being his shortcomings and waverings in the
matter of religion. He now announced his intention of remaining in Spain
and of keeping faithful to Roman Catholicism, and took up his residence
at Valladolid, where he was maintained by the Jesuits. He died there on
the 19th of June 1652, his body being subsequently buried in Westminster
Abbey. He had amassed a large fortune and built two magnificent houses
at Hanworth and Founthill. Cottington was evidently a man of
considerable ability, but the foreign policy pursued by him was opposed
to the national interests and futile in itself. According to Clarendon's
verdict "he left behind him a greater esteem of his parts than love of
his person." He married in 1623 Anne, daughter of Sir William Meredith
and widow of Sir Robert Brett. All his children predeceased him, and his
title became extinct at his death.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Article in the _Dict. of Nat. Biography_ and
  authorities there quoted; Clarendon's _Hist. of the Rebellion,
  passim_, and esp. xiii. 30 (his character), and xii., xiii. (account
  of the Spanish mission in 1649); Clarendon's _State Papers and Life_;
  Strafford's _Letters_; Gardiner's _Hist. of England and of the
  Commonwealth_; Hoare's _Wiltshire_; Laud's _Works_, vols, iii.-vii.;
  Winwood's _Memorials: A Refutation of a False and Impious Aspersion
  cast on the late Lord Cottington_; Dart, _Westmonasterium_, i. 181
  (epitaph and monument).     (P. C. Y.)


FOOTNOTE:

  [1] Strafford's _Letters_, ii. 52.




COTTON, the name of a well-known family of Anglo-Indian administrators,
of whom the following are the most notable.

SIR ARTHUR THOMAS COTTON (1803-1899), English engineer, tenth son of
Henry Calveley Cotton, was born on the 15th of May 1803, and was
educated at Addiscombe. He entered the Madras engineers in 1819, served
in the first Burmese war (1824-26), and in 1828 began his life-work on
the irrigation works of southern India. He constructed works on the
Cauvery, Coleroon, Godavari and Kistna rivers, making anicuts (dams) on
the Coleroon (1836-1838) for the irrigation of the Tanjore, Trichinopoly
and South Arcot districts; and on the Godivari (1847-1852) for the
irrigation of the Godavari district. He also projected the anicut on the
Kistna (Krishna), which was carried out by other officers. Before the
beginning of his work Tanjore and the adjoining districts were
threatened with ruin from lack of water; on its completion they became
the richest part of Madras, and Tanjore returned the largest revenue of
any district in India. He was the founder of the school of Indian
hydraulic engineering, and carried out much of his work in the face of
opposition and discouragement from the Madras government; though, in the
minute of the 15th of May 1858, that government paid an ample tribute to
the genius of Cotton's "master mind." He was knighted in 1861. Sir
Arthur Cotton believed in the possibility of constructing a complete
system of irrigation and navigation canals throughout India, and devoted
the whole of a long life to the partial realization of this project. He
died on the 24th of July 1899.

  See Lady Hope, _General Sir Arthur Cotton_ (1900).

SIR HENRY JOHN STEDMAN COTTON (1845-   ), Anglo-Indian administrator,
son of J. J. Cotton of the Madras Civil Service, was born on the 13th of
September 1845, and was educated at Magdalen College school and King's
College, London. He entered the Bengal Civil Service in 1867, and held
various appointments of increasing importance until he became chief
secretary to the Bengal government (1891-1896), acting home secretary to
the government of India (1896), and chief commissioner of Assam
(1896-1902). He retired in 1902, and soon became known as the leading
English champion of the Indian nationalists. In 1906 he entered
parliament as Liberal member for East Nottingham. He was the author of
_New India_ (1885; revised 1904-1907).

His brother, JAMES SUTHERLAND COTTON (1847-   ), was born in India on
the 17th of July 1847, and was educated at Magdalen College school and
Trinity College, Oxford. For many years he was editor of the _Academy_;
he published various works on Indian subjects, and was the English
editor of the revised edition of the _Imperial Gazetteer of India_
(1908).




COTTON, CHARLES (1630-1687), English poet, the translator of Montaigne,
was born at Beresford in Staffordshire on the 28th of April 1630. His
father, Charles Cotton, was a man of marked ability, and counted among
his friends Ben Jonson, John Selden, Sir Henry Wotton and Izaak Walton.
The son was apparently not sent to the university, but he had as tutor
Ralph Rawson, one of the fellows ejected from Brasenose College, Oxford,
in 1648. Cotton travelled in France and perhaps in Italy, and at the age
of twenty-eight he succeeded to an estate greatly encumbered by lawsuits
during his father's lifetime. The rest of his life was spent chiefly in
country pursuits, but from his _Voyage to Ireland in Burlesque_ (1670)
we know that he held a captain's commission and was ordered to that
country. His friendship with Izaak Walton began about 1655, and the fact
of this intimacy seems a sufficient answer to the charges sometimes
brought against Cotton's character, based chiefly on his coarse
burlesques of Virgil and Lucian. Walton's initials made into a cipher
with his own were placed over the door of his fishing cottage on the
Dove; and to the _Compleat Angler_ he added "Instructions how to angle
for a trout or grayling in a clear stream." He married in 1656 his
cousin Isabella, who was a sister of Colonel Hutchinson. It was for his
wife's sister, Miss Stanhope Hutchinson, that he undertook the
translation of Corneille's _Horace_ (1671). His wife died in 1670 and
five years later he married the dowager countess of Ardglass; she had a
jointure of L1500 a year, but it was secured from his extravagance, and
at his death in 1687 he was insolvent. He was buried in St James's
church, Piccadilly, on the 16th of February 1687. Cotton's reputation as
a burlesque writer may account for the neglect with which the rest of
his poems have been treated. Their excellence was not, however,
overlooked by good critics. Coleridge praises the purity and
unaffectedness of his style in _Biographia Literaria_, and Wordsworth
(_Preface_, 1815) gave a copious quotation from the "Ode to Winter." The
"Retirement" is printed by Walton in the second part of the _Compleat
Angler_. His masterpiece in translation, the _Essays of M. de Montaigne_
(1685-1686, 1693, 1700, &c.), has often been reprinted, and still
maintains its reputation; his other works include _The Scarronides, or
Virgil Travestie_ (1664-1670), a gross burlesque of the first and fourth
books of the Aeneid, which ran through fifteen editions; _Burlesque upon
Burlesque, ... being some of Lucian's Dialogues newly put into English
fustian_ (1675); _The Moral Philosophy of the Stoicks_ (1667), from the
French of Guillaume du Vair; _The History of the Life of the Duke
d'Espernon_ (1670), from the French of G. Girard; the _Commentaries_
(1674) of Blaise de Montluc; the _Planter's Manual_ (1675), a practical
book on arboriculture, in which he was an expert; _The Wonders of the
Peake_ (1681); the _Compleat Gamester_ and _The Fair one of Tunis_, both
dated 1674, are also assigned to Cotton.

  William Oldys contributed a life of Cotton to Hawkins's edition (1760)
  of the _Compleat Angler_. His _Lyrical Poems_ were edited by J. R.
  Tutin in 1903, from an unsatisfactory edition of 1689. His translation
  of Montaigne was edited in 1892, and in a more elaborate form in 1902,
  by W. C. Hazlitt, who omitted or relegated to the notes the passages
  in which Cotton interpolates his own matter, and supplied his
  omissions.




COTTON, GEORGE EDWARD LYNCH (1813-1866), English educationist and
divine, was born at Chester on the 29th of October 1813. He received his
education at Westminster school, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Here
he joined the Low Church party, and was also the intimate friend of
several disciples of Thomas Arnold, among whom were C. J. Vaughan and W.
J. Conybeare. The influence of Arnold determined the character and
course of his life. He graduated B.A. in 1836, and became an
assistant-master at Rugby. Here he worked devotedly for fifteen years,
inspired with Arnold's spirit, and heartily entering into his plans and
methods. He became master of the fifth form about 1840 and was
singularly successful with the boys. In 1852 he accepted the appointment
of headmaster at Marlborough College, then in a state of almost hopeless
disorganization, and in his six years of rule raised it to a high
position. In 1858 Cotton was offered the see of Calcutta, which, after
much hesitation about quitting Marlborough, he accepted. For its
peculiar duties and responsibilities he was remarkably fitted by the
simplicity and strength of his character, by his large tolerance, and by
the experience which he had gained as teacher and ruler at Rugby and
Marlborough. The government of India had just been transferred from the
East India Company to the crown, and questions of education were eagerly
discussed. Cotton gave himself energetically to the work of establishing
schools for British and Eurasian children, classes which had been
hitherto much neglected. He did much also to improve the position of the
chaplains, and was unwearied in missionary visitation. His sudden death
was widely mourned. On the 6th of October 1866 he had consecrated a
cemetery at Kushtea on the Ganges, and was crossing a plank leading from
the bank to the steamer when he slipped and fell into the river. He was
carried away by the current and never seen again.

  A memoir of his life with selections from his journals and
  correspondence, edited by his widow, was published in 1871.




COTTON, JOHN (1585-1652), English and American Puritan divine, sometimes
called "The Patriarch of New England," born in Derby, England, on the
4th of December 1585. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,
graduating B.A. in 1603 and M.A. in 1606, and became a fellow in
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, then a stronghold of Puritanism, where,
during the next six years, according to his friend and biographer, Rev.
Samuel Whiting, he was "head lecturer and dean, and Catechist," and "a
dilligent tutor to many pupils." In June 1612 he became vicar of the
parish church of St Botolphs in Boston, Lincolnshire, where he remained
for twenty-one years and was extremely popular. Becoming more and more a
Puritan in spirit, he ceased, about 1615, to observe certain ceremonies
prescribed by the legally authorized ritual, and in 1632 action was
begun against him in the High Commission Court. He thereupon escaped,
disguised, to London, lay in concealment there for several months, and,
having been deeply interested from its beginning in the colonization of
New England, he eluded the watch set for him at the various English
ports, and in July 1633 emigrated to the colony of Massachusetts Bay,
arriving at Boston early in September. On the 10th of October he was
chosen "teacher" of the First Church of Boston, of which John Wilson
(1588-1667) was pastor, and here he remained until his death on the 23rd
of December 1652. In the newer, as in the older Boston, his popularity
was almost unbounded, and his influence, both in ecclesiastical and in
civil affairs, was probably greater than that of any other minister in
theocratic New England. According to the contemporary historian, William
Hubbard, "Whatever he delivered in the pulpit was soon put into an order
of court, if of a civil, or set up as a practice in the church, if of an
ecclesiastical concernment." His influence, too, was generally
beneficent, though it was never used to further the cause of religious
freedom, or of democracy, his theory of government being given in an
oft-quoted passage: "Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did
ordeyne as a fitt government eyther for church or commonwealth.... As
for Monarchy and aristocracy they are both for them clearly approved,
and directed in Scripture yet so as (God) referreth the sovereigntie to
himselfe, and setteth up Theocracy in both, as the best form of
government." He naturally took an active part in most, if not all, of
the political and theological controversies of his time, the two
principal of which were those concerning Antinomianism and the expulsion
of Roger Williams. In the former his position was somewhat equivocal--he
first supported and then violently opposed Anne Hutchinson,--in the
latter he approved Williams's expulsion as "righteous in the eyes of
God," and subsequently in a pamphlet discussion with Williams,
particularly in his _Bloudy Tenent, Washed and made White in the Blood
of the Lamb_ (1647), vigorously opposed religious freedom. He was a man
of great learning and was a prolific writer. His writings include: _The
Keyes to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Power thereof_ (1644), _The Way
of the Churches of Christ in New England_ (1645), and _The Way of
Congregational Churches Cleared_ (1648), these works constituting an
invaluable exposition of New England Congregationalism; and _Milk for
Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, Chiefly for the
Spirituall Nourishment of Boston Babes in either England, but may be of
like Use for any Children_ (1646), widely used for many years, in New
England, for the religious instruction of children.

  See the quaint sketch by Cotton Mather, John Cotton's grandson, in
  _Magnalia_ (London, 1702), and a sketch by Cotton's contemporary and
  friend, Rev. Samuel Whiting, printed in Alexander Young's _Chronicles
  of the First Planters of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1623 to
  1636_ (Boston, 1846); also A. W. McClure's _The Life of John Cotton_
  (Boston, 1846), a chapter in Arthur B. Ellis's _History of the First
  Church in Boston_ (Boston, 1881), and a chapter in Williston Walker's
  _Ten New England Leaders_ (New York, 1901).     (W. WR.)




COTTON, SIR ROBERT BRUCE, Bart. (1571-1631), English antiquary, the
founder of the Cottonian library, born at Denton in Huntingdonshire on
the 22nd of January 1571, was a descendant, as he delighted to boast, of
Robert Bruce. He was educated at Westminster school under William Camden
the antiquary, and at Jesus College, Cambridge. His antiquarian tastes
were early displayed in the collection of ancient records, charters and
other manuscripts, which had been dispersed from the monastic libraries
in the reign of Henry VIII.; and throughout the whole of his life he was
an energetic collector of antiquities from all parts of England and the
continent. His house at Westminster had a garden going down to the river
and occupied part of the site of the present House of Lords. It was the
meeting-place in the last years of Elizabeth's reign of the antiquarian
society founded by Archbishop Parker. In 1600 Cotton visited the north
of England with Camden in search of Pictish and Roman monuments and
inscriptions. His reputation as an expert in heraldry led to his being
asked by Queen Elizabeth to discuss the question of precedence between
the English ambassador and the envoy of Spain, then in treaty at Calais.
He drew up an elaborate paper establishing the precedence of the English
ambassador. On the accession of James I. he was knighted, and in 1608 he
wrote a _Memorial on Abuses in the Navy_, that resulted in a navy
commission, of which he was made a member. He also presented to the king
an historical _Inquiry into the Crown Revenues_, in which he speaks
freely about the expenses of the royal household, and asserts that
tonnage and poundage are only to be levied in war time, and to "proceed
out of good will, not of duty." In this paper he supported the creation
of the order of baronets, each of whom was to pay the crown L1000; and
in 1611 he himself received the title.

Cotton helped John Speed in the compilation of his _History of England_
(1611), and was regarded by contemporaries as the compiler of Camden's
_History of Elizabeth_. It seems more likely that it was executed by
Camden, but that Cotton exercised a general supervision, especially with
regard to the story of Mary queen of Scots. The presentation of his
mother's history was naturally important to James I., and Cotton himself
took a keen interest in the matter. He had had the room in Fotheringay
where Mary was executed transferred to his family seat at Connington.
Meanwhile he was enlarging his collection of documents. In 1614 Arthur
Agarde (q.v.) left his papers to him, and Camden's manuscripts came to
him in 1623. In 1615 Cotton, as the intimate of the earl of Somerset,
whose innocence he always maintained, was placed in confinement on the
charge of being implicated in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury; he
confessed that he had acted as intermediary between Sarmiento, the
Spanish ambassador, and Somerset, and had altered the dates of
Somerset's correspondence. He was released after about eight months'
imprisonment without formal trial, and obtained a pardon on payment of
L500. His friendship with Gondomar, Spanish ambassador in England from
1613 to 1621, brought further suspicion, probably undeserved, upon
Cotton, of unduly favouring the Catholic party. From Charles I. and
Buckingham Cotton received no favour; his attitude towards the court had
begun to change, and he became the intimate friend of Sir John Eliot,
Sir Simonds d'Ewes and John Selden. He had entered parliament in 1604 as
member for Huntingdon; in 1624 he sat for Old Sarum; in 1625 for
Thetford; and in 1628 for Castle Rising, Norfolk. In the debate on
supply in 1625 Cotton provided Eliot with full notes defending the
action of the opposition in parliament, and in 1628 the leaders of the
party met at Cotton's house to decide on their policy. In 1626 he gave
advice before the council against debasing the standard of the coinage;
and in January 1628 he was again before the council, urging the summons
of a parliament. His arguments on the latter occasion are contained in
his tract entitled _The Danger in which the Kingdom now standeth and the
Remedy_. In October of the next year he was arrested, together with the
earls of Bedford, Somerset, and Clare, for having circulated, with
ironical purpose, a tract known as the _Proposition to bridle
Parliament_, which had been addressed some fifteen years before by Sir
Robert Dudley to James I., advising him to govern by force; the
circulation of this by Parliamentarians was regarded as intended to
insinuate that Charles's government was arbitrary and unconstitutional.
Cotton denied knowledge of the matter, but the original was discovered
in his house, and the copies had been put in circulation by a young man
who lived after him and was said to be his natural son. Cotton was
himself released the next month; but the proceedings in the star chamber
continued, and, to his intense vexation, his library was sealed up by
the king. He died on the 6th of May 1631, and was buried in Connington
church, Huntingdonshire, where there is a monument to his memory.

  Many of Cotton's pamphlets were widely read in manuscript during his
  lifetime, but only two of his works were printed, _The Reign of Henry
  III_. (1627) and _The Danger in which the Kingdom now Standeth_
  (1628). His son, Sir Thomas (1594-1662), added considerably to the
  Cottonian library; and Sir John, the fourth baronet, presented it to
  the nation in 1700. In 1731 the collection, which had in the interval
  been removed to the Strand, and thence to Ashburnham House, was
  seriously damaged by fire. In 1753 it was transferred to the British
  Museum.

  See the article LIBRARIES, and Edwards's _Lives of the Founders of the
  British Museum_, vol. i. Several of Cotton's papers have been printed
  under the title _Cottoni Posthuma_; others were published by Thomas
  Hearne.




COTTON (Fr. _coton_; from Arab, _qutun_), the most important of the
vegetable fibres of the world, consisting of unicellular hairs which
occur attached to the seeds of various species of plants of the genus
_Gossypium_, belonging to the Mallow order (Malvaceae). Each fibre is
formed by the outgrowth of a single epidermal cell of the testa or outer
coat of the seed.

_Botany and Cultivation._--The genus _Gossypium_ includes herbs and
shrubs, which have been cultivated from time immemorial, and are now
found widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions
of both hemispheres. South America, the West Indies, tropical Africa and
Southern Asia are the homes of the various members, but the plants have
been introduced with success into other lands, as is well indicated by
the fact that although no species of _Gossypium_ is native to the United
States of America, that country now produces over two-thirds of the
world's supply of cotton. Under normal conditions in warm climates many
of the species are perennials, but, in the United States for example,
climatic conditions necessitate the plants being renewed annually, and
even in the tropics it is often found advisable to treat them as annuals
to ensure the production of cotton of the best quality, to facilitate
cultural operations, and to keep insect and fungoid pests in check.

Microscopic examination of a specimen of mature cotton shows that the
hairs are flattened and twisted, resembling somewhat in general
appearance an empty and twisted fire hose. This characteristic is of
great economic importance, the natural twist facilitating the operation
of spinning the fibres into thread or yarn. It also distinguishes the
true cotton from the silk cottons or flosses, the fibres of which have
no twist, and do not readily spin into thread, and for this reason,
amongst others, are very considerably less important as textile fibres.
The chief of these silk cottons is kapok, consisting of the hairs borne
on the interior of the pods (but not attached to the seeds) of
_Eriodendron anfractuosum_, the silk cotton tree, a member of the
Bombacaceae, an order very closely allied to the Malvaceae.

_Classification._--Considerable difficulty is encountered in attempting
to draw up a botanical classification of the species of _Gossypium_.
Several are only known in cultivation, and we have but little knowledge
of the wild parent forms from which they have descended. During the
periods the cottons have been cultivated, selection, conscious or
unconscious, has been carried on, resulting in the raising, from the
same stock probably, in different places, of well-marked forms, which,
in the absence of the history of their origin, might be regarded as
different species. Then again, during at least the last four centuries,
cotton plants have been distributed from one country to another, only to
render still more difficult any attempt to establish definitely the
origin of the varieties now grown. Under these circumstances it is not
surprising to find that those who have paid attention to the botany of
the cottons differ greatly in the number of species they recognize.
Linnaeus described five or six species, de Candolle thirteen. Of the two
Italian botanists who in comparatively recent years have monographed the
group, Parlatore (_Le Specie dei cotoni_, 1866) recognizes seven
species, whilst Todaro (_Relazione sulla culta dei cotoni_, 1877-1878)
describes over fifty species: many of these, however, are of but little
economic importance, and, in spite of the difficulties mentioned above,
it is possible for practical purposes to divide the commercially
important plants into five species, placing these in two groups
according to the character of the hairs borne on the seeds. Sir G.
Watt's exhaustive work on _Wild and Cultivated Cotton Plants of the
World_ (1907) is the latest authority on the subject; and his views on
some debated points have been incorporated in the following account.

[Illustration: From Strasburger's _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, by permission
of Gustav Fischer.

FIG. 1.--Seed-hairs of the Cotton, _Gossypium herbaceum_. A, Part of
seed-coat with hairs; B_1, insertion and lower part; B_2, middle part;
and B_3, upper part of a hair.]

A seed of "Sea Island cotton" is covered with long hairs only, which are
readily pulled off, leaving the comparatively small black seed quite
clean or with only a slight fuzz at the end, whereas a seed of "Upland"
or ordinary American cotton bears both long and short hairs; the former
are fairly easily detached (less easily, however, than in Sea Island
cotton), whilst the latter adhere very firmly, so that when the long
hairs are pulled off the seed remains completely covered with a short
fuzz. This is also the case with the ordinary Indian and African
cottons. There remains one other important group, the so-called "kidney"
cottons in which there are only long hairs, and the seed easily comes
away clean as with "Sea Island," but, instead of each seed being
separate, the whole group in each of the three compartments of the
capsule is firmly united together in a more or less kidney-shaped mass.
Starting with this as the basis of classification, we can construct the
following key, the remaining principal points of difference being
indicated in their proper places:--

  i.  Seeds covered with long hairs only, flowers yellow, turning to red.

       A. Seeds separate.
          Country of origin, Tropical America--(1) _G. barbadense_, L.
       B. Seeds of each loculus united.
          Country of origin, S. America--(2) _G. brasiliense_, Macf.

  ii. Seeds covered with long and short hairs.

       A. Flowers yellow or white, turning to red.
              a. Leaves 3 to 5 lobed, often large. Flowers white.
                 Country of origin, Mexico--(3) _G. hirsutum_, L.
              b. Leaves 3 to 5, seldom 7 lobed. Small. Flowers yellow.
                 Country of origin, India--(4) _G. herbaceum_, L.
       B. Flowers purple or red. Leaves 3 to 7 lobed.
            Place of origin, Old World--(5) _G. arboreum_, L.

1. _G. barbadense_, Linn. This plant, known only in cultivation, is
usually regarded as native to the West Indies. Watt regards it as
closely allied to _G. vitifolium_, and considers the modern stock a
hybrid, and probably not indigenous to the West Indies. He classifies
the modern high-class Sea Island cottons as _G. barbadense_, var.
_maritima_. Whatever may be its true botanical name it is the plant
known in commerce as "Sea Island" cotton, owing to its introduction and
successful cultivation in the Sea Islands and the coastal districts of
South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. It yields the most valuable of all
cottons, the hairs being long, fine and silky, and ranging in length
from 3/8 to 2-1/2 in. By careful selection (the methods of which are
described below) in the United States, the quality of the product was
much improved, and on the recent revival of the cotton industry in the
West Indies American "Sea Island" seed was introduced back again to the
original home of the species.

Egyptian cotton is usually regarded as being derived from the same
species. Watt considers many of the Egyptian cottons to be races or
hybrids of _G. peruvianum_, Cav. Egyptian cotton in length of staple is
intermediate between average Sea Island and average Upland. It has,
however, certain characteristics which cause it to be in demand even in
the United States, where during recent years Egyptian cotton has
comprised about 80% of all the "foreign" cottons imported. These special
qualities are its fineness, strength, elasticity and great natural
twist, which combined enable it to make very fine, strong yarns, suited
to the manufacture of the better qualities of hosiery, for mixing with
silk and wool, for making lace, &c. It also mercerizes very well. The
principal varieties of Egyptian cotton are: _Mitafifi_, the best-known
and most extensively grown, hardy and but little affected by climatic
variation. It is usually regarded as the standard Egyptian cotton; the
lint is yellowish brown, the seeds black and almost smooth, usually with
a little tuft of short green hairs at the ends. _Abassi_, a variety
comparatively recently obtained by selection. The lint is pure white,
very fine and silky, but not so strong as Mitafifi cotton. _Yannovitch_,
a variety known since about 1897, yields the finest and most silky lint
of the white Egyptian cottons. _Bamia_, yielding a brown lint, very
similar to Mitafifi, but slightly less valuable. _Ashmouni_, a variety
principally cultivated in Upper Egypt. The lint is brown and generally
resembles Mitafifi but is less valuable.

Other varieties are _Zifiri_, _Hamouli_ and _Gallini_, all of minor
importance.

2. _G. brasiliense_, Macf. (_G. peruvianum_, Engler), or kidney cotton.
Amongst the varieties of cotton which are derived from this species
appear to be Pernambuco, Maranham, Ceara, Aracaty and Maceio cottons.
The fibre is generally white, somewhat harsh and wiry, and especially
adapted for mixing with wool. The staple varies in length from 1 to
about 1-1/2 in.

3. _G. hirsutum_, Linn. Although _G. barbadense_ yields the most
valuable cotton, _G. hirsutum_ is the most important cotton-yielding
plant, being the source of American cotton, i.e. Upland, Georgia, New
Orleans and Texas varieties. The staple varies usually in length between
3/4 and 1-1/4 in. According to Watt there are many hybrids in American
cottons between _G. hirsutum_ and _G. mexicanum_.


4. _G. herbaceum_, Linn. Levant cotton is derived from this species. The
majority of the races of cotton cultivated in India are often referred
to this species, which is closely allied to _G. hirsutum_ and has been
regarded as identical with it. Amongst the cottons of this source are
Hinganghat, Tinnevelly, Dharwar, Broach, Amraoti (Oomras or
Oomrawattee), Kumta, Westerns, Dholera, Verawal, Bengals, Sind and
Bhaunagar. Watt dissents from this view and classes these Indian cottons
as _G. obtusifolium_ and _G. Nanking_ with their varieties. The Indian
cottons are usually of short staple (about 3/4 in.), but are probably
capable of improvement.

5. _G. arboreum_, Linn. This species is often considered as indigenous
to India, but Dr Engler has pointed out that it is found wild in Upper
Guinea, Abyssinia, Senegal, etc. It is the "tree cotton" of India and
Africa, being typically a large shrub or small tree. The fibre is fine
and silky, of about an inch in length. In India it is known as Nurma or
Deo cotton, and is usually stated to be employed for making thread for
the turbans of the priests. Commercially it is of comparatively minor
importance.

The following table, summarized from the _Handbook to the Imperial
Institute Cotton Exhibition_, 1905, giving the length of staple and
value on one date (January 16, 1905), will serve to indicate the
_comparative_ values of some of the principal commercial cottons. The
actual value, of course, fluctuates greatly.

                              Length of Staple.  Value
                                   Inches.       Per lb.
  Sea Island Cotton--                             s. d.
    Carolina Sea Island             1.8           1  3
    Florida   "     "               1.8           1  0
    Georgia   "     "               1.7             11-1/4
    Barbados  "     "               2.0           1  3

  Egyptian Cottons--
    Yannovitch                      1.5              9-1/4
    Abassi                          1.5              8-3/4
    Good Brown Egyptian (Mitafifi)  1.2              7-1/2

  American Cotton--
    Good middling Memphis           1.3              4-2/5
    Good middling Texas             1.0              4-1/5
    Good middling Upland            1.0              4

  Indian Cottons--
    Fine Tinnevelly                 0.8              4-1/4
    Fine Bhaunagar                  1.0              3-7/8
    Fine Amraoti                    1.0              3-7/8
    Fine Broach                     0.9              3-13/16
    Fine Bengal                     0.9              3-11/16
    Fine ginned Sind                0.8              3-11/16
    Good ginned Kumta               1.0              3-1/2

The close relationship between the length of the staple and the market
price will be at once apparent.

_Cultivation._--Cotton is very widely cultivated throughout the world,
being grown on a greater or less scale as a commercial crop in almost
every country included in the broad belt between latitudes 43 deg. N.
and 33 deg. S., or approximately within the isothermal lines of 60 deg.
F.

The cotton plant requires certain conditions for its successful
cultivation; but, given these, it is very little affected by seasonal
vicissitudes. Thus, for example, in the United States the worst season
rarely diminishes the crop by more than about a quarter or one-third;
such a thing as a "half-crop" is unknown. Various climatic factors may
cause temporary checks, but the growing and maturing period is
sufficiently long to allow the plants to overcome these disturbances.

Cotton requires for its development from six to seven months of
favourable weather. It thrives in a warm atmosphere, even in a very hot
one, provided that it is moist and that the transpiration is not in
excess of the supply of water. An idea of the requirements of the plant
will perhaps be afforded by summarizing the conditions which have been
found to give the best results in the United States.

During April (when the seed is usually sown) and May frequent light
showers, which keep the ground sufficiently moist to assist germination
and the growth of the young plants, are desired. Three to four inches of
rain per month is the average. The active growing period is from early
June to about the middle of August. During June and the first fortnight
in July plenty of sunshine is necessary, accompanied by sufficient rain
to promote healthy, but not excessive, growth; the normal rainfall in
the cotton belt for this period is about 4-1/2 in. per month. During the
second portion of July and the first of August a slightly higher
rainfall is beneficial, and even heavy rains do little harm, provided
the subsequent months are dry and warm. The first flowers usually appear
in June, and the bolls ripen from early in August. Picking takes place
normally during September and October, and during these months dry
weather is essential. Flowering and fruiting go on continually, although
in diminishing degree, until the advent of frost, which kills the
flowers and young bolls and so puts an end to the production of cotton
for the season.

In the tropics the essential requirements are very similar, but there
the dry season checks production in much the same way as do the frosts
in temperate climates. In either case an adequate but not excessive
rainfall, increasing from the time of sowing to the period of active
growth, and then decreasing as the bolls ripen, with a dry picking
season, combined with sunny days and warm nights, provide the ideal
conditions for successful cotton cultivation. In regions where climatic
conditions are favourable, cotton grows more or less successfully on
almost all kinds of soil; it can be grown on light sandy soils, loams,
heavy clays and sandy "bottom" lands with varying success. Sandy uplands
produce a short stalk which bears fairly well. Clay and "bottom" lands
produce a large, leafy plant, yielding less lint in proportion. The most
suitable soils are medium grades of loam. The soil should be able to
maintain very uniform conditions of moisture. Sudden variations in the
amount of water supplied are injurious: a sandy soil cannot retain
water; on the other hand a clay soil often maintains too great a supply,
and rank growth with excess of foliage ensues. The best soil for cotton
is thus a deep, well-drained loam, able to afford a uniform supply of
moisture during the growing period. Wind is another important factor, as
cotton does not do well in localities subject to very high winds; and in
exposed situations, otherwise favourable, wind belts have at times to be
provided.

_Cultivation in the United States._--The United States being the most
important cotton-producing country, the methods of cultivation practised
there are first described, notes on methods adopted in other countries
being added only when these differ considerably from American practice.

The culture of cotton must be a clean one. It is not necessarily deep
culture, and during the growing season the cultivation is preferably
very shallow. The result is a great destruction of the humus of the
soil, and great leaching and washing, especially in the light loams of
the hill country of the United States. The main object, therefore, of
the American cotton-planter is to prevent erosion. Wherever the planters
have failed to guard their fields by hillside ploughing and terracing,
these have been extensively denuded of soil, rendering them barren, and
devastating other fields lying at a lower level, which are covered by
the wash. The hillsides have gradually to be terraced with the plough,
upon almost an exact level. On the better farms this is done with a
spirit-level or compass from time to time and hillside ditches put in at
the proper places. In the moist bottom-lands along the rivers it is the
custom to throw the soil up in high beds with the plough, and then to
cultivate them deep. This is the more common method of drainage, but it
is expensive, as it has to be renewed every few years. More intelligent
planters drain their bottom-lands with underground or open drains. In
the case of small plantations the difficulties of adjusting a
right-of-way for outlet ditches have interfered seriously with this
plan. Many planters question the wisdom of deepbreaking and subsoiling.
There can be no question that a deep soil is better for the
cotton-plant; but the expense of obtaining it, the risk of injuring the
soil through leaching, and the danger of bringing poor soil to the
surface, have led many planters to oppose this plan. Sandy soils are
made thereby too dry and leachy, and it is a questionable proceeding to
turn the heavy clays upon the top. Planters are, as a result, divided in
opinion as to the wisdom of subsoiling. Nothing definite can be said
with regard to a rotation of crops upon the cotton plantation. Planters
appreciate generally the value of broad-leaved and narrow-leaved plants
and root crops, but there is an absence of exact knowledge, with the
result that their practices are very varied. It is believed that the
rotation must differ with every variety of soil, with the result that
each planter has his own method, and little can be said in general. A
more careful study of the physical as well as the chemical properties of
a soil must precede intelligent experimentation in rotation. This
knowledge is still lacking with regard to most of the cotton soils. The
only uniform practice is to let the fields "rest" when they have become
exhausted. Nature then restores them very rapidly. The exhaustion of the
soil under cotton culture is chiefly due to the loss of humus, and
nature soon puts this back in the excellent climate of the
cotton-growing belt. Fields considered utterly used up, and allowed to
"rest" for years, when cultivated again have produced better crops than
those which had been under a more or less thoughtful rotation. In spite
of the clean culture, good crops of cotton have been grown on some soils
in the south for more than forty successive years. The fibre takes
almost nothing from the land, and where the seeds are restored to the
soil in some form, even without other fertilizers, the exhaustion of the
soil is very slow. If the burning-up of humus and the leaching of the
soil could be prevented, there is no reason why a cotton soil should not
produce good crops continuously for an indefinite time. Bedding up land
previous to planting is almost universal. The bed forms a warm seed-bed
in the cool weather of early spring, and holds the manure which is
drilled in usually to better advantage. The plants are generally left 2
or 3 in. above the middle of the row, which in four-foot rows gives a
slope of 1 in. to the foot, causing the plough to lean from the plants
in cultivating, and thus to cut fewer roots. The plants are usually cut
out with a hoe from 8 to 14 in. apart. It seems to make little
difference exactly what distance they are, so long as they are not wider
apart on average land than 1 ft. On rich bottom-land they should be more
distant. The seed is dropped from a planter, five or six seeds in a
single line, at regular intervals 10 to 12 in. apart. A narrow deep
furrow is usually run immediately in advance of the planter, to break up
the soil under the seed. The only time the hoe is used is to thin out
the cotton in the row; all the rest of the cultivation is by various
forms of ploughs and so-called cultivators. The question of deep and
shallow culture has been much discussed among planters without any
conclusion applicable to all soils being reached. All grass and weeds
must be kept down, and the crust must be broken after every rain, but
these seem to be the only principles upon which all agree. The most
effective tool against the weeds is a broad sharp "sweep," as it is
called, which takes everything it meets, while going shallower than most
ploughs. Harrows and cultivators are used where there are few weeds, and
the mulching process is the one desired.

The date of cotton-planting varies from March 1 to June 1, according to
situation. Planting begins early in March in Southern Texas, and the
first blooms will appear there about May 15. Planting may be done as
late as April 15 in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, and continue
as late as the end of May. The first blooms will appear in this region
about July 15. Picking may begin on July 10 in Southern Texas, and
continue late into the winter, or until the rare frost kills the plants.
It may not begin until September 10 in Piedmont, North Carolina. It is a
peculiarity of the cotton-plant to lose a great many of its blooms and
bolls. When the weather is not favourable at the fruiting stage, the
otherwise hardy cotton plant displays its great weakness in this way. It
sheds its "forms" (as the buds are called), blooms, and even half-grown
bolls in great numbers. It has frequently been noted that even
well-fertilized plants upon good soil will mature only 15 or 20% of the
bolls produced. No means are known so far for preventing this great
waste. Experts are at an entire loss to form a correct idea of the
cause, or to apply any effective remedy.

Cotton-picking is at once the most difficult and most expensive
operation in cotton production. It is paid for at the rate of from 45 to
50 cents per cwt. of seed cotton. The work is light, and is effectually
performed by women and even children, as well as men; but it is tedious
and requires care. The picking season will average 100 days. It is
difficult to get the hands to work until the cotton is fully opened, and
it is hard to induce them to pick over 100 lb. a day, though some
expert hands are found in every cotton plantation who can pick twice as
much. The loss resulting from careless work is very serious. The cotton
falls out easily or is dropped. The careless gathering of dead leaves
and twigs, and the soiling of the cotton by earth or by the natural
colouring matter from the bolls, injure the quality. It has been
commonly thought that the production of cotton in the south is limited
by the amount that can be picked, but this limit is evidently very
remote. The negro population of the towns and villages of the cotton
country is usually available for a considerable share in cotton-picking.
There is in the cotton states a rural population of over 7,000,000, more
or less occupied in cotton-growing, and capable, at the low average of
100 lb. a day, of picking daily nearly 500,000 bales. It is evident,
therefore, that if this number could work through the whole season of
100 days, they could pick three or four times as much cotton as the
largest crop ever made. Great efforts have been made to devise
cotton-picking machines, but, as yet, complete success has not been
attained. Lowne's machine is useful in specially wide-planted fields and
when the ground is sufficiently hard.

_Cotton Ginning._--The crop having been picked, it has to be prepared
for purpose of manufacture. This comprises separating the fibre or lint
from the seeds, the operation being known as "ginning." When this has
been accomplished the weight of the crop is reduced to about one-third,
each 100 lb. of seed cotton as picked yielding after ginning some 33
lb of lint and 66 lb. of cotton seed. The actual amounts differ with
different varieties, conditions of cultivation, methods of ginning, &c.;
a recent estimate in the United States gives 35% of lint for Upland
cotton and 25% for Sea Island cotton as more accurate.

The separation of lint from seed is accomplished in various ways. The
most primitive is hand-picking, the fibre being laboriously pulled from
off each seed, as still practised in parts of Africa. In modern
commercial cotton production ginning machines are always used. Very
simple machines are used in some parts of Africa. The simplest cotton
gin in extensive use is the "churka," used from early times, and still
largely employed in India and China. It consists essentially of two
rollers either both of wood, or one of wood and one of iron, geared to
revolve in contact in opposite directions; the seed cotton is fed to the
rollers, the lint is drawn through, and the seed being unable to pass
between the rollers is rejected. With this primitive machine, worked by
hand, about 5 lb. of lint is the daily output. In the Macarthy roller
gin, the lint, drawn by a roller covered with leather (preferably walrus
hide), is drawn between a metal plate called the "doctor" (fixed
tangentially to the roller and very close to it) and a blade called the
"beater" or knife, which rapidly moves up and down immediately behind,
and parallel to, the fixed plate. The lint is held by the roughness of
the roller, and the blade of the knife or beater readily detaches the
seed from the lint; the seed falls through a grid, while the lint passes
over the roller to the other side of the machine. A hand Macarthy roller
gin worked by two men will clean about 4 to 6 lb. of lint per hour. A
similar, but larger machine, requiring about 1-1/2 horse-power to run it,
will turn out 50 to 60 lb. of Egyptian or 60 to 80 lb. of Sea Island
cleaned cotton per hour. By simple modifications the Macarthy gin can be
used for all kinds of cotton. Various attempts have been made to
substitute a comb for the knife or beater, and one of the latest
productions is the "Universal fibre gin," in which a series of blunt
combs working horizontally replace the solid beater and so-called knife
of the Macarthy gin.

Opposed to the various types of roller gins is the "saw gin," invented
by Eli Whitney, an American, in 1792. This machine, under various
modifications, is employed for ginning the greater portion of the cotton
grown in the Southern States of America. It consists essentially of a
series of circular notched disks, the so-called saws, revolving between
the interstices of an iron bed upon which the cotton is placed: the
teeth of the "saws". catch the lint and pull it off from the seeds, then
a revolving brush removes the detached lint from the saws, and creates
sufficient draught to carry the lint out of the machine to some
distance. Saw gins do considerable damage to the fibre, but for
short-stapled cotton they are largely used, owing to their great
capacity. The average yield of lint per "saw" in the United States, when
working under perfect conditions, is about 6 lb. per hour. Some of the
American ginners are very large indeed, a number (_Bulletin of the
Bureau of the Census on Cotton Production_) being reported as containing
on the average 1156 saws with an average production of 4120 bales of
cotton. Saw gins are not adapted to long-stapled cottons, such as Sea
Island and Egyptian, which are generally ginned by machines of the
Macarthy type.

The machine which will gin the largest quantity in the shortest time is
naturally preferred, unless such injury is occasioned as materially to
diminish the market value of the cotton. This has sometimes been to the
extent of 1d. or 2d. per lb. and even more as regards Sea Island and
other long-stapled cottons. The production, therefore, of the most
perfect and efficient cotton-cleaning machinery is of importance alike
to the planter and manufacturer.

_Baling._--The cotton leaves the ginning machine in a very loose
condition, and has to be compressed into bales for convenience of
transport. Large baling presses are worked by hydraulic power; the
operation needs no special description. Bales from different countries
vary greatly in size, weight and appearance. The American bale has been
described in a standard American book on cotton as "the clumsiest,
dirtiest, most expensive and most wasteful package, in which cotton or
any other commodity of like value is anywhere put up." Suggestions for
its improvement, which if carried out would (it is estimated) result in
a monetary saving of L1,000,000 annually, were made by the Lancashire
Private Cotton Investigation Commission which visited the Southern
States of America in 1906.

The approximate weights of some of the principal bales on the English
market are as follows:--

  United States           500 lb.
  Indian                  400 lb.
  Egyptian                700 lb.
  Peruvian                200 lb.
  Brazilian               200 to 300 lb.

With baling the work of the producer is concluded.

_Cultivation in Egypt._--Climatic conditions in Egypt differ radically
from those in the United States, the rainfall being so small as to be
quite insufficient for the needs of the plant, very little rain indeed
falling in the Nile Delta during the whole growing season of the crop:
yet Egypt is in order the third cotton-producing country of the world,
elaborate irrigation works supplying the crop with the requisite water.
The area devoted to cotton in Egypt is about 1,800,000 acres, and
nine-tenths of it is in the Nile Delta. The delta soil is typically a
heavy, black, alluvial clay, very fertile, but difficult to work;
admixture of sand is beneficial, and the localities where this occurs
yield the best cotton. Formerly in Egypt the cotton was treated as a
perennial, but this practice has been generally abandoned, and fresh
plants are raised from seed each year, as in America; one great
advantage is that more than one crop can thus be obtained each year. The
following rotation is frequently adopted. It should be noted that in
Egypt the year is divided into three seasons--winter, summer and "Nili."
The two first explain themselves; Nili is the season in which the Nile
overflows its banks.

  +----------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+
  |                |    Winter.    |  Summer.  |     Nili.     |
  |                +---------------+-----------+---------------+
  | First year     |Clover         |   Cotton  |      ..       |
  | Second year    |Beans or wheat |     ..    |Corn or fallow |
  +----------------+---------------+-----------+---------------+

For cotton cultivation the land is ploughed, carefully levelled, and
then thrown up into ridges about 3 ft. apart. Channels formed at right
angles to the cultivation ridges provide for the access of water to the
crop. The seeds, previously soaked, are sown, usually in March, on the
sides of the ridges, and the land watered. After the seedlings appear,
thinning is completed in usually three successive hoeings, the plants
being watered after thinning, and subsequently at intervals of from
twelve to fifteen days, until about the end of August when picking
commences. The total amount of water given is approximately equivalent
to a rainfall of about 35 in. The crop is picked, ginned and baled in
the usual way, the Macarthy style action roller gins being almost
exclusively employed.

_Cotton Seed._--The history of no agricultural product contains more of
interest and instruction for the student of economics than does that of
cotton seed in the United States. The revolution in its treatment is a
real romance of industry. Up till 1870 or thereabouts, cotton seed was
regarded as a positive nuisance upon the American plantation. It was
left to accumulate in vast heaps about ginhouses, to the annoyance of
the farmer and the injury of his premises. Cotton seed in those days was
the object of so much aversion that the planter burned it or threw it
into running streams, as was most convenient. If the seed were allowed
to lie about, it rotted, and hogs and other animals, eating it, often
died. It was very difficult to burn, and when dumped into rivers and
creeks was carried out by flood water to fill the edges of the flats
with a decaying and offensive mass of vegetable matter. Although used in
the early days to a limited extent as a food for milch cows and other
stock, and to a larger extent as a manure, no systematic efforts were
made anywhere in the South to manufacture the seed until the later
'fifties, when the first cotton seed mills were established. It is said
that there were only seven cotton oil mills in the South in 1860. The
cotton-growing industry was interrupted by the Civil War, and the
seed-milling business did not begin again until 1868. After that time
the number of mills rapidly increased. There were 25 in the South in
1870, 50 in 1880, 120 in 1890, and about 500 in 1901, about one-third
being in Texas.

Experience shows that 1000 lb. of seed are produced for every 500 lb
of cotton brought to market. On the basis, therefore, of a cotton crop
of 10,000,000 bales of 500 lb. each, there are produced 5,000,000 tons
of cotton seed. If about 3,000,000 tons only are pressed, there remain
to be utilized on the farm 2,000,000 tons of cotton seed, which, if
manufactured, would produce a total of $100,000,000 from cotton seed. In
contrast with the farmers of the 'sixties, the southern planter of the
20th century appreciates the value of his cotton seed, and farmers, too
remote from the mills to get it pressed, now feed to their stock all the
cotton seed they conveniently can, and use the residue either in compost
or directly as manure. The average of a large number of analyses of
Upland cotton seed gives the following figures for its fertilizing
constituents:--Nitrogen, 3.07%; phosphoric acid, 1.02%; potash, 1.17%;
besides small amounts of lime, magnesia and other valuable but less
important ingredients. Sea Island cotton seed is rather more valuable
than Upland: the corresponding figures for the three principal
constituents being nitrogen 3.51, phosphoric acid 1.69, potash 1.59%.
Using average prices paid for nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash when
bought in large quantities and in good forms, these ingredients, in a
ton of cotton seed, amount to $9.00 worth of fertilizing material.
Compared with the commercial fertilizer which the farmer has to buy,
cotton seed possesses, therefore, a distinct value.

The products of cotton seed have become important elements in the
national industry of the United States. The main product is the refined
oil, which is used for a great number of purposes, such as a substitute
for olive oil, mixed with beef products for preparation of compound
lard, which is estimated to consume one-third of cotton seed oil
produced in the States. The poorer grades are employed in the
manufacture of soap, candles and phonograph records. Miners' lamp oil
consists of the bleached oil mixed with kerosene. Cotton seed cake or
meal (the residue after the oil is extracted) is one of the most
valuable of feeding stuffs, as the following simple comparison between
it and oats and corn will show:--


  +-----------------+----------+--------------+-------+-----------+
  |                 | Proteins |Carbohydrates |       |Ash or Bone|
  |Average Analyses.| or Flesh | or Fuel and  | Fats. |  Makers.  |
  |                 | Formers. |Fat Suppliers.|       |           |
  +-----------------+----------+--------------+-------+-----------+
  |Cotton seed meal |   43.26  |     22.31    | 13.45 |    7.02   |
  |Corn             |   10.5   |     70.0     |  5.5  |    1.02   |
  |Oats             |   17.0   |     65.0     |  8.0  |    1.2    |
  +-----------------+----------+--------------+-------+-----------+

Cotton seed meal, though poor in carbohydrates, the fat- and
energy-supplying ingredients, is exceedingly rich in protein, the nerve-
and muscle-feeding ingredients. But it still contains a large amount of
oil, which forms animal fat and heat, and thus makes up for part of its
deficiency in carbohydrates. The meal, in fact, is so rich in protein
that it is best utilized as a food for animals when mixed with some
coarse fodder, thus furnishing a more evenly-balanced ration. In
comparative valuations of feeding stuffs it has been found that cotton
seed meal exceeds corn meal by 62%, wheat by 67%, and raw cotton seed by
26%. Cotton seed meal, in the absence of sufficient stock to consume it,
is also used extensively as a fertilizer, and for this purpose it is
worth, determining the price on the same basis as used above for the
seed, from $19 to $20 per ton. But it has seldom reached this price,
except in some of the northern states, where it is used for feeding
purposes. A more rational proceeding would be to feed the meal to
animals and apply the resulting manure to the soil. When this is done,
from 80 to 90% of the fertilizing material of the meal is recovered in
the manure, only 10 to 20% being converted by the animal into meat and
milk. The profit derived from the 20% thus removed is a very large one.
These facts indicate that we have here an agricultural product the
market price of which is still far below its value as compared, on the
basis of its chemical composition, either with other feeding stuffs or
with other fertilizers. Though it is probably destined to be used even
more extensively as a fertilizer before the demand for it as a feeding
stuff becomes equal to the supply, practically all the cotton seed meal
of the south will ultimately be used for feeding. One explanation of
this condition of things is that there is still a large surplus of
cotton seed which cannot be manufactured by the mills. Another reason is
found in the absence of cattle in the south to eat it.

With the consideration of cotton seed oil and meal we have not, however,
exhausted its possibilities. Cotton seed hulls constitute about half the
weight of the ginned seed. After the seed of Upland cotton has been
passed through a fine gin, which takes off the short lint or linters
left upon it by the farmer, it is passed through what is called a
sheller, consisting of a revolving cylinder, armed with numerous knives,
which cut the seed in two and force the kernels or meats from the
shells. The shells and kernels are then separated in a winnowing
machine. This removal of the shell makes a great difference in the
oilcake, as the decorticated cake is more nutritious than the
undecorticated. For a long time these shells or hulls, as they are
called, were burned at oil mills for fuel, 2-1/2 tons being held equal
to a cord of wood, and 4-1/3 tons to a ton of coal. The hulls thus
burned produced an ash containing an average of 9% of phosphoric acid
and 24% of potash--a very valuable fertilizer in itself, and one eagerly
sought by growers of tobacco and vegetables. It was not long, however,
before the stock-feeder in the South found that cotton seed hulls were
an excellent substitute for hay. They are used on a very large scale in
the vicinity of oil mills in southern cities like Memphis, New Orleans,
Houston, and Little Rock, from 500 to 5000 cattle being often collected
in a single yard for this purpose. No other feed is required, the only
provision necessary being an adequate supply of water and an occasional
allowance of salt. Many thousands of cattle are fattened annually in
this way at remarkably low cost.

Careful attention is now given to the employment of the seed in new
cotton countries, and oil expression is practised in the West Indies.
Hull is the principal seat of the industry in Great Britain, and
enormous quantities of Indian and Egyptian cotton seed are imported and
worked up.

The following diagram, modified from one by Grimshaw, in accordance
with the results obtained by the better class of modern mills, gives an
interesting _resume_ of the products obtained from a ton of cotton
seed:--

  _Products from a Ton of Cotton Seed._

                          Cotton seed, 2000 pounds.
                              +------+------------------------+------
                              |      |                        |
                              |   Linters, 23 pounds.         |
                              |   -------------------         |
                              |                               |
           Meats, 1090 pounds.                      Hulls, 888 pounds.
           --------+-----------+----                +---+------+-----
                   |           |                    |   |      |
            Cake, 800 pounds.  |                    |   |      |
            ---+---------------+                    |   |      |
               |               |                    |   |      |
             Meal.             |            Fibre.  |   |    Bran.
  -----------------------------+          -----+----+   |    --+--
  (Feeding stuff.  Fertilizer.)|               |        |      |
  -----------------------------+               |        |      |
                               |     ----------+--------+------+-------
            Crude oil, 290 pounds.   (High-grade paper.)|(Cattle food.)
            -----+-------+--------   -------------------+--------------
                 |       |                              |
         Summer Yellow.  |Soap stock.        (Fuel.)    |
  +--------+------------  +--+--------       ---+-------+-------+
  |(Winter | Cotton seed     |                  |               |
  |yellow  |  stearin.)    Soaps.             Ashes.            |
  +--------+-----------    ------             --+---       -----+-------
  |                                             |          (Cattle food)
  |                                             |          with the meal.
  |    Salad oil.                          Fertilizer.          |
  +-------------------                                   These together,
  |  Summer white.                                       a very valuable
  +-------+-----------                                       manure.
  |       |
  | Lard. |
  +-------+
  |
  | Cottolene (with beef stearin, cooking oil).
  +--------------------------------------------
  |
  | Miners' oil.
  +-------------
  |
  | Soap.
  +------

_Pests and Diseases of the Cotton Plant._

_Insect Pests._--It is common knowledge that when any plant is cultivated
on a large scale various diseases and pests frequently appear. In some
cases the pest was already present but of minor importance. As the supply
of its favourite food plant is increased, conditions of life for the pest
are improved, and it accordingly multiplies also, possibly becoming a
serious hindrance to successful cultivation. At other times the pest is
introduced, and under congenial conditions (and possibly in the absence
of some other organism which keeps it in check in its native country)
increases accordingly. Some idea of the enormous damage wrought by the
collective attacks of individually small and weak animals may be gathered
from the fact that a conservative estimate places the loss due to insect
attacks on cotton in the United States at the astounding figure of
$60,000,000 (L12,000,000) annually. Of this total no less than
$40,000,000 (L8,000,000) is credited to a small beetle, the cotton boll
weevil, and to two caterpillars. The best means of combating these
attacks depends on a knowledge of the life-histories and habits of the
pests. The following notes deal only with the practical side of the
question, and as the United States produce some seven-tenths of the
world's cotton crop attention is especially directed to the principal
cotton pests of that country. Those of other regions are only referred to
when sufficiently important to demand separate notice.

The cotton boll weevil (_Anthonomus grandis_), a small grey weevil often
called the Mexican boll weevil, is the most serious pest of cotton in
the United States, where the damage done by it in 1907 was estimated at
about L5,000,000. It steadily increased in destructiveness during the
preceding eight years. Attention was drawn to it in 1862, when it caused
the abandonment of cotton cultivation about Monclova in Mexico. About
1893 it appeared in Texas, and then rapidly spread. It is easily
transported from place to place in seed-cotton, and for this reason the
Egyptian government in 1904 prohibited the importation of American
cotton seed. Not only is the pest carried from place to place, but it
also migrates, and in 1907 it crossed from Louisiana, where it first
appeared in 1905, to Mississippi. That the insect is likely to prove
adaptable is perhaps indicated by the fact that in 1906 it made a
northward advance of about 60 m. in a season with no obvious special
features favouring the pest. Its eastern progress was also rapid. "The
additional territory infested during 1904 aggregates about 15,000,000
sq. m., representing approximately an area devoted to the culture of
cotton of 900,000 acres" (_Year-book, U.S. Dept. Agriculture_, 1904). In
1906 the additional area invaded amounted to 1,500,000 acres (_Ibid._,
1906).

The adult weevils puncture the young flower-buds and deposit eggs; and
as the grubs from the eggs develop, the bud drops. They also lay eggs
later in the year in the young bolls. These do not drop, but as the
grubs develop the cotton is ruined and the bolls usually become
discoloured and crack, their contents being rendered useless.

No certain remedy is known for the destruction on a commercial scale of
the boll weevil, but every effort has been made in the United States to
check the advance of the insect, to ascertain and encourage its natural
enemies, and to propagate races of cotton which resist its attacks.
Special interest attaches to the investigations made by Mr O. F. Cook,
of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, in Guatemala. The Indians in part of
Guatemala raise cotton, although the boll weevil is abundant.
Examination showed that although the weevil attacked the young buds
these did not drop off, but that a special growth of tissue inside the
bud frequently killed the grub. Also, inside the young bolls which had
been pierced a similar proliferation or growth of the tissue was set up,
which enveloped and killed the pest. Probably by unconscious selection
of surviving plants through long ages this type has been evolved in
Guatemala, and experiments have been made to develop weevil-resistant
races in the United States. Mr Cook also found that the boll weevil was
attacked, killed and eaten by an ant-like creature, the "kelep."
Attempts have been made to introduce this into the infested area in
Texas; but owing to the winter proving fatal to the "kelep" its
usefulness may be restricted to tropical and subtropical regions.

The cotton boll worm (_Chloridea obsoleta_, also known as _Heliothis
armiger_) is a caterpillar. The parent moth lays eggs, from which the
young "worms" hatch out. They bore holes and penetrate into flower-buds
and young bolls, causing them to drop. Fortunately the "worms" prefer
maize to cotton, and the inter-planting at proper times of maize, to be
cut down and destroyed when well infested, is a method commonly employed
to keep down this pest. Paris green kills it in its young stages before
it has entered the buds or bolls. The boll worm is most destructive in
the south-western states, where the damage done is said to vary from 2
to 60% of the crop. Taking a low average of 4%, the annual loss due to
the pest is estimated at about L2,500,000, and it occupies second place
amongst the serious cotton pests of the U.S.A. The boll worm is widely
spread through the tropical and temperate zones. It may occur in a
country without being a pest to cotton, e.g. in India it attacks various
plants but not cotton. It has not yet been reported as a cotton pest in
the West Indies.

The Egyptian boll worm (_Earias insulana_) is the most important insect
pest in Egypt and occurs also in other parts of Africa. Indian boll
worms include the same species, and the closely related _Earias fabia_,
which also occurs in Egypt.

The cotton worm (_Aletia argillacea_)--also called cotton caterpillar,
cotton army worm, cotton-leaf worm--is also one stage in the
life-history of a moth. It is a voracious creature, and unchecked will
often totally destroy a crop. In former years the annual damage done by
it in the United States was assessed at L4,000,000 to L6,000,000.
Dusting with Paris green is, however, an efficient remedy _if promptly
applied at the outset of the attack_. The annual damage was in 1906
reduced to L1,000,000 to L2,000,000, and this on a larger area devoted
to cotton than in the case of the estimate given above. It is the most
serious pest of cotton in the West Indies. The Egyptian cotton worm is
_Prodenia littoralis_.

The caterpillars ("cut worms") of various species of _Agrotis_ and other
moths occur in all parts of the world and attack young cotton. They can
be killed by spreading about cabbage leaves, &c., poisoned with Paris
green.

Locusts, green-fly, leaf-bugs, blister mites, and various other pests
also damage cotton, in a similar way to that in which they injure other
crops.

The "cotton stainers," various species of _Dysdercus_, are widely
distributed, occurring for example in America, the West Indies, Africa,
India, &c. The larvae suck the sap from the young bolls and seeds,
causing shrivelling and reduction in quantity of fibre. They are called
"stainers" because their excrement is yellow and stains the fibre; also
if crushed during the process of ginning they give the cotton a reddish
coloration. The Egyptian cotton seed bug or cotton stainer belongs to
another genus, being _Oxycarenus hyalinipennis_. Other species of this
genus occur on the west coast of Africa. They do considerable damage to
cotton seed.

_Fungoid Diseases._--"Wilt disease," or "frenching," perhaps the most
important of the fungoid disease of cotton in the United States, is due
to _Neocosmospora vasinfecta_. Young plants a few inches high are
usually attacked; the leaves, beginning with the lower ones, turn
yellow, and afterwards become brown and drop. The plants remain very
dwarf and generally unhealthy, or die. The roots also are affected, and
instead of growing considerably in length, branch repeatedly and give
rise to little tufts of rootlets. There is no method known of curing
this disease, and all that can be done is to take every precaution to
eradicate it, by pulling up and burning diseased plants, isolating the
infected area by means of trenches, and avoiding growing cotton, or an
allied plant such as the ochro (_Hibiscus esculentus_), in the field.
Fortunately the careful work of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and
of planters such as Mr E. L. Rivers of James Island, South Carolina, has
resulted in the production of disease-resistant races. In one instance
Mr Rivers found one healthy plant in a badly affected field. The seed
was saved and gave rise to a row of plants all of which grew healthily
in an infected field, whereas 95% of ordinary Sea Island cotton plants
from seed from a non-infected field planted alongside as a control were
killed. The resistance was well maintained in succeeding generations,
and races so raised form a practical means of combating this serious
disease.

In "Root rot," as the name implies, the roots are attacked, the fungus
being a species of _Ozonium_, which envelops the roots in a white
covering of mould or mycelium. The roots are prevented from fulfilling
their function of taking up water and salts from the soil; the leaves
accordingly droop, and the whole plant wilts and in bad attacks dies. It
has yearly proved a more serious danger in Texas and other parts of the
south-west of the United States, and the damage due to it in Texas
during 1905 was estimated at about L750,000. No remedy is known for the
disease, and cotton should not be planted on infected land for at least
three or four years.

"Boll rot," or "Anthracnose," is a disease which may at times be
sufficiently serious to destroy from 10 to 50% of the crop. The fungus
which causes it (_Colletotrichum gossypii_) is closely related to one of
the fungi attacking sugar-cane in various parts of the world. Small
red-brown spots appear on the bolls, gradually enlarge, and develop into
irregular black and grey patches. The damage may be only slight, or the
entire boll may ripen prematurely and become dry and dead.

Many other diseases occur, but the above are sufficient to indicate some
of the principal ones in the most important cotton countries of the
world.


_Improvement of Cotton by Seed Selection._

In the cotton belt of the United States it would be possible to put a
still greater acreage under this crop, but the tendency is rather
towards what is known as "diversified" or mixed farming than to making
cotton the sole important crop. Cotton, however, is in increasing
demand, and the problem for the American cotton planter is to obtain a
better yield of cotton from the same area,--by "better yield" meaning an
increase not only in quantity but also in quality of lint. This ideal is
before the cotton grower in all parts of the world, but practical steps
are not always taken to realize it. Some of the United States planters
are alert to take advantage of the application of science to industry,
and in many cases even to render active assistance, and very successful
results have been attained by the co-operation of the United States
Department of Agriculture and planters. With the improvement of cotton
the name of Mr Herbert J. Webber is prominently associated, and a full
discussion of methods and results will be found in his various papers in
the _Year-books_ of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The principle on
which the work is based is that plants have their individualities and
tend to transmit them to their progeny. Accordingly a selection of
particular plants to breed from, because they possess certain desirable
characteristics, is as rational as the selection of particular animals
for breeding purposes in order to maintain the character of a herd of
cattle or of a flock of sheep.

Inspection of a field of cotton shows that different plants vary as
regards productiveness, length, and character of the lint, period of
ripening, power of resistance to various pests and of withstanding
drought. A simple method of increasing the yield is that practised with
success by some growers in the States. Pickers are trained to recognize
the best plants, "that is, those most productive, earliest in ripening,
and having the largest, best formed and most numerous bolls." These
pickers go carefully over the field, usually just before the second
picking, and gather ripe cotton from the best plants only; this selected
seed cotton is ginned separately, and the seed used for sowing the next
year's crop.

A more elaborate method of selection is practised by some of the Sea
Island cotton planters in the Sea Islands, famous for the quality of
their cotton. A field is gone over carefully, and perhaps some 50 of the
best plants selected; a second examination in the field reduces these
perhaps to one half, and each plant is numbered. The cotton from each is
collected and kept separately, and at the end of the season carefully
examined and weighed, and a final selection is then made which reduces
the number to perhaps five; the cotton from each of these plants is
ginned separately and the seed preserved for sowing. The simplest
possible case in which only one plant is finally selected is illustrated
in the diagram.

  1st. Year       2nd. Year    3rd. Year     4th. Year     5th. Year
                  +------+     +-------+     +-------+
   Select (1) --->| 500  | --->|5 Acres| --->|General|
   Plant          |Plants|     |       |     | Crop  |
                  +------+     +-------+     +-------+
                      |
                      |
                     \/        +-------+     +-------+     +-------+
        Select Plant (1) ----->| 500   | --->|5 Acres| --->|General|
                               | Plants|     |       |     | Crop  |
                               +-------+     +-------+     +-------+
                                   |
                                   |
                                  \/         +-------+     +-------+
                     Select Plant (1) ------>| 500   | --->|5 Acres|
                                             | Plants|     |       |
                                             +-------+     +-------+
                                                 |
                                                 |
                                                \/         +-------+
                                   Select Plant (1) ------>| 500   |
                                                           | Plants|
                                                           +-------+
                                                               |
                                                               |
                                                              \/
                                                 Select Plant (1)

  After Webber, _Year-book, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture_, 1902.

  Improvement of Cotton by Seed Selection.

From the seeds of the selected plant of the 1st year about 500 plants
can be raised in the next year. One plant is selected again from these
500, and the general crop of seed is used to sow about five acres for
the 3rd year, from which seed is obtained for the general crop in the
4th year. One special plant is selected each year from the 500 raised
from the previous season's test plant, and in four years' time the
progeny of this plant constitutes the "general crop." The practice may
be modified according to the size of estate by selecting more than one
plant each year, but the principle remains unaltered. This method is in
actual use by growers of Sea Island cotton in America and in the islands
off the coast of S. Carolina; the greatest care is taken to enhance the
quality of the lint, which has been gradually improved in length,
fineness and silkiness. Mr Webber, in summing up, says, "When Sea Island
cotton was first introduced into the United States from the West Indies,
it was a perennial plant, unsuited to the duration of the season of the
latitude of the Sea Islands of S. Carolina; but, through the selection
of seed from early maturing individual plants, the cotton has been
rendered much earlier, until now it is thoroughly adapted to the
existing conditions. The fibre has increased in length from about 1-3/4
to 2-1/2 in., and the plants have at the same time been increased in
productiveness. The custom of carefully selecting the seed has grown
with the industry and may be said to be inseparable from it. It is only
by such careful and continuous selection that the staple of these
high-bred strains can be kept up to its present superiority, and if for
any reason the selection is interrupted there is a general and rapid
decline in quality."

When selection is being made for several characters at the same time,
and also in hybridization experiments, where it is important to have
full records of the characters of individual plants and their progeny,
"score cards," such as are used in judging stock, with a scale of
points, are used.

The improvements desired in cotton vary to some degree in different
countries, according to the present character of the plants, climatic
conditions, the chief pests, special market requirements, and other
circumstances. Amongst the more important desiderata are:--

1. Increased Yield.

2. Increase in Length of Lint.--Webber records the case of Stamm
Egyptian cotton imported into Columbia, in which by simple selection, as
outlined above, during two years plants were obtained uniformly earlier,
more productive, and yielding longer and better lint.

3. Uniformity in Length of the Lint.--This is important especially in
the long-stapled cottons, unevenness leading to waste in manufacture,
and consequently to a lower price for the cotton.

4. Strength of Fibre.--Long-stapled cottons have been produced in the
States by crossing Upland and Sea Island cotton. These hybrids produce a
lint which is long and silky, but often deficient in strength: selection
for strength amongst the hybrids, with due regard to length, may
overcome this.

5. Season of Maturing.--Seed should be selected from early and late
opening bolls, according to requirements. Earliness is especially
important in countries where the season is short.

6. Adaptation to Soil and Climate.--High-class cottons often do not
flourish if introduced into a new country. They are adapted to special
conditions which are lacking in their new surroundings, but a few will
probably do fairly well the first year, and the seeds from these
probably rather better the next, and so on, so that in a few years' time
a strain may be available which is equal or even superior to the
original one introduced.

7. Resistance to Disease.--The method employed is to select, for seed
purposes, plants which are resistant to the particular disease. Thus
sometimes a field of cotton is attacked by some disease, perhaps "wilt,"
and a comparatively few plants are but very slightly affected. These are
propagated, and there are instances as described above of very
successful and commercially important results having been attained.
Special interest attaches to experiments made in the United States to
endeavour to raise races of cotton resistant to the boll weevil.

8. Resistance to Weather.--Strong winds and heavy rains do much damage
to cotton by blowing or beating the lint out of the bolls. In some
instances a slight difference in the shape, mode of opening, &c., of the
boll prevents this, and accordingly seed is selected from bolls which
suffer least under the particular adverse conditions.

Attention has been paid in the West Indies to seed selection, by the
officers of the imperial Department of Agriculture, with the object of
retaining for West Indian Sea Island cotton its place as the most
valuable cotton on the British market.

In India, where conditions are much more diversified and it is more
difficult to induce the native cultivator to adopt new methods,
attention has also been directed during recent years to the improvement
of the existing races. Efforts have been made in the same direction in
Egypt, West Africa, &c.


_The World's Commercial Cotton Crop._

It is impossible to give an exact return of the total amount of cotton
produced in the world, owing to the fact that in China, India and other
eastern countries, in Mexico, Brazil, parts of the Russian empire,
tropical Africa, &c., considerable--in some eases very large--quantities
of cotton are made up locally into wearing apparel, &c., and escape all
statistical record. It is estimated that the amount thus used in India
exclusive of the consumption of mills is equivalent to about 400,000
bales. Neglecting, however, these quantities, which do not affect the
world's market, the annual supplies of cotton are approximately as
follows:--

  +---------------------------+------------------+-----------+
  |                           |   Approximate    |           |
  |         Country           |    Production.   |Percentage.|
  |                           | Bales of 500 lb. |           |
  |---------------------------+------------------+-----------+
  | United States of America  |    11,000,000    |   68.75   |
  | India                     |     3,000,000    |   18.75   |
  | Egypt                     |     1,000,000    |    6.25   |
  | All other countries       |     1,000,000    |    6.25   |
  |                           +------------------+-----------+
  | Total                     |    16,000,000    |  100.00   |
  +---------------------------+------------------+-----------+

In 1905 the world's crop closely approximated to 16,000,000 bales,
whilst in 1904 it was nearly 19,000,000 bales and in 1906 nearly
20,000,000 bales. The United States produced very nearly seven-tenths of
the total "visible" cotton crops of the world. This, however, is quite a
modern development, comparatively speaking. "During the period from 1786
to 1790 the West Indies furnished about 70% of the British supply, the
Mediterranean countries 20%, and Brazil 8%; whilst the quantity
contributed by the United States and India was less than 1% and Egypt
contributed none. In 1906 the United States contributed 65% of the
commercial cotton, British India 19%, Egypt 7%, and Russia 3%. Of the
countries which were prominent in the production of cotton in 1790,
Brazil and Asiatic Turkey alone remain" (_U.S.A. Bureau of the Census,
Bulletin No. 76_). The actual figures for the chief countries for
1904-1906, taken from the same source, are as follows:--

  _The World's Commercial Cotton Crop._ (In 500 lb. Bales.)

  +-----------------+------------+------------+------------+
  |    Country.     |    1904.   |    1905.   |    1906.   |
  +-----------------+------------+------------+------------+
  | United States   | 13,085,000 | 10,340,000 | 13,016,000 |
  | British India   |  2,843,000 |  2,519,000 |  3,708,000 |
  | Egypt           |  1,258,000 |  1,181,000 |  1,400,000 |
  | Russia          |    554,000 |    585,000 |    675,000 |
  | China           |    468,000 |    415,000 |    418,000 |
  | Brazil          |    210,000 |    258,000 |    275,000 |
  | Mexico          |    114,000 |    125,000 |    130,000 |
  | Peru            |     40,000 |     55,000 |     55,000 |
  | Turkey          |    100,000 |    107,000 |    107,000 |
  | Persia          |     45,000 |     47,000 |     47,000 |
  | Japan           |     16,000 |     15,000 |     11,000 |
  | Other countries |     70,000 |    100,000 |    100,000 |
  +-----------------+------------+------------+------------+
  | Total           | 18,803,000 | 15,747,000 | 19,942,000 |
  +-----------------+------------+------------+------------+

This title serves to indicate the principal countries contributing to
the world's supply of cotton. The following notes afford a summary of
the position of the industry in the more important countries.

_United States of America._--The cultivation of cotton as a staple crop
in the United States dates from about 1770,[1] although efforts appear
to have been made in Virginia as far back as 1621. The supplies
continued to be small up to the end of the century. In 1792 the quantity
exported from the United States was only equivalent to 275 bales, but
by the year 1800 it had increased to nearly 36,000 bales. At the close
of the war in 1815 the revival of trade led to an increased demand, and
the progress of cotton cultivation in America became rapid and
continuous, until at length about 85% of the raw material used by
English manufacturers was derived from this one source. With a capacity
for the production of cotton almost boundless, the crop which was so
insignificant when the century began had in 1860 reached the enormous
extent of 4,824,000 bales. This great source of supply, when apparently
most abundant and secure, was shortly after suddenly cut off, and
thousands were for a time deprived of employment and the means of
subsistence. In this period of destitution the cotton-growing resources
of every part of the globe were tested to the utmost; and in the
exhibition of 1862 the representatives of every country from which
supplies might be expected met to concert measures for obtaining all
that was wanted without the aid of America. The colonies and
dependencies of Great Britain, including India, seemed well able to grow
all the cotton that could be required, whilst numerous other countries
were ready to afford their co-operation. A powerful stimulus was thus
given to the growth of cotton in all directions; a degree of activity
and enterprise never witnessed before was seen in India, Egypt, Turkey,
Greece, Italy, Africa, the West Indies, Queensland, New South Wales,
Peru, Brazil, and in short wherever cotton could be produced; and there
seemed no room to doubt that in a short time there would be abundant
supplies independently of America. But ten years afterwards, in the
exhibition of 1872, which was specially devoted to cotton, a few only of
the _thirty-five_ countries which had sent their samples in 1862 again
appeared, and these for the most part only to bear witness to
disappointment and failure. America had re-entered the field of
competition, and was rapidly gaining ground so as to be able to bid
defiance to the world. True, the supply from India had been more than
doubled, the adulteration once so rife had been checked, and the
improved quality and value of the cotton had been fully acknowledged,
but still the superiority of the produce of the United States was proved
beyond all dispute, and American cotton was again king. Slave labour
disappeared, and under new and more promising auspices a fresh career of
progress began. With rare combination of facilities and advantages, made
available with remarkable skill and enterprise, the production of cotton
in America seems likely for a long series of years to continue to
increase in magnitude and importance. The total area of the
cotton-producing region in the States is estimated at 448,000,000 acres,
of which in 1906 only about one acre in fifteen was devoted to cotton.
The potentialities of the region are thus enormous.

  +------------------+---------------------------+----------------------+------------+
  |   States and     |       Upland Cotton.      |  Sea Island Cotton.  |   Total    |
  |  Territories.    +--------------+------------+-----------+----------+   Value.   |
  |                  |   Quantity.  |   Value.   | Quantity. |   Value. |            |
  +------------------+--------------+------------+-----------+----------+------------+
  |                  |      lb.     |     $      |    lb.    |    $     |     $      |
  | Alabama          |  603,651,989 | 60,425,564 |     ..    |    ..    | 60,425,564 |
  | Arkansas         |  450,991,361 | 45,144,235 |     ..    |    ..    | 45,144,235 |
  | Florida          |   17,876,133 |  1,789,401 | 9,031,896 | 2,587,638|  4,377,039 |
  | Georgia          |  750,762,910 | 75,151,367 | 9,950,634 | 2,850,857| 78,002,224 |
  | Indian Territory |  196,648,765 | 19,684,542 |     ..    |    ..    | 19,684,542 |
  | Kansas           |        9,844 |        985 |     ..    |    ..    |        985 |
  | Kentucky         |    1,008,290 |    100,930 |     ..    |    ..    |    100,930 |
  | Louisiana        |  473,222,310 | 47,369,553 |     ..    |    ..    | 47,369,553 |
  | Mississippi      |  732,755,978 | 73,348,874 |     ..    |    ..    | 73,348,874 |
  | Missouri         |   26,040,093 |  2,606,613 |     ..    |    ..    |  2,606,613 |
  | New Mexico       |       74,340 |      7,442 |     ..    |    ..    |      7,442 |
  | North Carolina   |  276,215,506 | 27,649,172 |     ..    |    ..    | 27,649,172 |
  | Oklahoma         |  233,396,905 | 23,363,030 |     ..    |    ..    | 23,363,030 |
  | South Carolina   |  415,386,362 | 41,580,175 | 2,723,859 |   999,656| 42,579,831 |
  | Tennessee        |  146,569,434 | 14,671,600 |     ..    |    ..    | 14,671,600 |
  | Texas            |2,001,181,289 |200,318,247 |     ..    |    ..    |200,318,247 |
  | Virginia         |    6,609,963 |    661,657 |     ..    |    ..    |    661,657 |
  +------------------+--------------+------------+-----------+----------+------------+
  | Total--United    |6,332,401,472 |633,873,387 |21,706,389 | 6,438,151|640,311,538 |
  |    States        | (=12,644,803 |    ..      |  (=43,413 |    ..    |     ..     |
  |                  |    bales)    |    ..      |    bales) |    ..    |     ..     |
  +------------------+--------------+------------+-----------+----------+------------+

Cotton is now the second crop of the United States, being surpassed in
value only by Indian corn (maize). The area devoted to this crop in 1879
was 14,480,019 acres, and the total commercial crop was 5,755,359
bales. In 1899 the acreage had increased to 24,275,101 and the crop to
9,507,786 bales. In 1906 the total area was 28,686,000 acres and the
crop 13,305,265 bales.

The preceding table gives the quantity, value and character of the crop
for each of the cotton-growing states in 1906, as reported by the Bureau
of the Census.

_Mexico._--Cotton is extensively grown in Mexico, and large quantities
are used for home consumption. The cultivation is of very old standing.
Cortes in 1519 is said to have received cotton garments as presents from
the natives of Yucatan, and to have found the Mexicans using cotton
extensively for clothing. From 1900 to 1905 the crop was about 100,000
bales per annum; the whole is consumed in local mills, and cotton is
imported also from the United States.

_Brazil._--The cotton-growing region in Brazil comprises a belt some 200
m. in width, in the north-eastern portion of the country, and a strip
along the valley of the San Francisco, where a large amount of the
present crop is produced. The cotton is known in commerce under the name
of the place of export, e.g. Maceio, Pernambuco or Pernam, Ceara, Rio
Grande, &c. The export fluctuates greatly.

              Bales of 500 lb.    Approx. Value.
  1901             53,002            L500,000
  1902            143,963           1,200,000
  1903            126,896           1,300,000
  1904             59,413             800,000
  1905            107,887           1,000,000
  1906            142,972           1,500,000

The total production in 1906 was estimated at about 275,000 bales, but
only a portion was available for export, there being an increasing
consumption in Brazil itself.

_Peru._--Cotton is an important crop in Peru, where it has long been
cultivated. Most of the crop is grown in the irrigated coastal valleys.
With more water available, the output could be considerably increased,
e.g. in the Piura district. "Rough Peruvian," the produce of one of the
tree cottons, has a special use, as being rather harsh and wiry it is
well adapted for mixing with wool. Egyptian cotton is also grown. The
annual export is about 30,000 bales.

_Cotton Production in the British West Indies_: 1905-1906.[2]

  +-------------------------+--------+----------+---------+----------+
  |                         |        | Yield =  | Average | Value of |
  |         Island.         |Area in | Bales of |  Price  | Lint and |
  |                         | Acres. |  500 lb. |in Pence |   Seed.  |
  |                         |        |          | per lb. |          |
  +-------------------------+--------+----------+---------+----------+
  | Barbados.               |  2,000 |    959   |   15.2  | L33,557  |
  | St Vincent.             |    790 |    330   |   18.0  |  13,557  |
  | Grenada (mostly _Marie_ |  3,600 |    623   |    5.0  |   8,400  |
  |   _galante_ cotton).    |        |          |         |          |
  | St Kitts                |  1,000 |    241   |   15.0  |   8,380  |
  | Nevis                   |  1,700 |    240   |   13.0  |   8,364  |
  | Anguilla                |  1,000 |    161   |   15.0  |   5,280  |
  | Antigua                 |    700 |    200   |   14.2  |   6,522  |
  | Montserrat              |    770 |    196   |   15.0  |   6,789  |
  | Virgin Islands          |     40 |     14   |    ..   |     400  |
  | Jamaica                 |  1,500 |    123   |    ..   |   4,025  |
  +-------------------------+--------+----------+---------+----------+
  |          Total          | 12,900 |   3087   |    ..   | L95,274  |
  +-------------------------+--------+----------+---------+----------+

_British West Indies._--Cotton was cultivated as a minor crop in parts
of the West Indies as long ago as the 17th century, and at the opening
of the 18th century the islands supplied about 70% of all the cotton
used in Great Britain. Greater profits obtained from sugar caused the
industry to be abandoned, except in the small island of Carriacou. In
1900 the Imperial Department of Agriculture and private planters began
experiments with the object of reintroducing the cultivation, owing to
the decline in value of sugar. The department was actively assisted by
the British Cotton Growing Association, and the results have been very
successful, as was shown at an exhibition held in Manchester in 1908. A
supply of seed of a high grade of Sea Island cotton was obtained from
Colonel Rivers's estate in the Sea Islands, S. Carolina, and so
successful has the cultivation been that from some of the islands West
Indian Sea Island cotton obtains a higher price than the corresponding
grade of cotton from the Sea Islands themselves.

In 1902 the total area under cotton cultivation in the British West
Indies was 500 acres. The industry made rapid progress. In 1903 it was
4000; in 1905-1906 it was 12,900; and for 1906-1907 it was 18,166 acres.
The table indicates the chief cotton-producing islands, the acreage in
each, yield, average value per pound and total value of the crop in
1905-1906.

The whole of this crop was Sea Island cotton, with the exception of the
"Marie galante" grown in Carriacou. Marie galante is a harsh cotton of
the Peruvian or Brazilian type. The low yield per acre in this island,
and also the low value of the lint per lb. compared with the Sea Island
cotton, is clearly apparent.

In 1906-1907 the acreage was substantially increased in many of the
islands, e.g. Barbados from 2000 to 5000; St Vincent 790 to 1533; St
Kitts and Anguilla 1000 to 1500 each; Antigua 700 to 1883. In Jamaica,
on the other hand, it was reduced from 1500 to 300 acres.

_Spain._--Cotton was formerly grown in southern Spain on an extensive
scale, and as recently as during the American Civil War a crop of 8000
to 10,000 bales was obtained. It is considered that with facilities for
irrigation Andalusia could produce 150,000 bales annually. The former
industry was abandoned as other crops became more remunerative. The
government is encouraging recent efforts to re-establish the
cultivation.

_Malta._--Cotton has long been cultivated in Malta, but the acreage
diminished from 1750 acres in 1899 to 670 acres in 1906. A considerable
quantity of the produce is spun and woven locally; e.g. in 1904 the
export was equivalent to about 120 bales out of a total production of
330 bales, and in 1905 to 258 out of 333 bales (of 500 lb. each).

_Cyprus_ has a soil and climate suited to cotton, which was formerly
grown here on a large scale. The rainfall is uncertain and low, however,
never exceeding 40 in., and on the supply of water by irrigation the
future of the industry mainly depends. The exports dwindled from 3600
bales in 1865 to 946 in 1905; great fluctuations occur, the export in
1904, for example, being only 338 bales. The cotton grown is rather
short-stapled and goes mainly to Marseilles and Trieste. Some is used
locally in the manufacture of cloth.

_Egypt._--The position of Egypt as the third cotton-producing country of
the world has already been pointed out, and the varieties grown and the
mode of cultivation described. The introduction of the exotic varieties
dates from the beginning of the 19th century. The industry was actively
promoted by a Frenchman named Jumel, in the service of Mehemet Ali, from
1820 onwards with great success. The area under cotton is about
1,800,000 acres.

  _Cotton Production in Egypt._

  1850             87,200 bales of 500 lb.
  1865            439,000    "      "
  1890            798,000    "      "
  1904          1,258,000    "      "
  1905          1,250,000    "      "
  1906          1,400,000    "      "

_The Egyptian Sudan._--Egyptian cotton was cultivated in the Sudan to
the extent of 21,788 acres in 1906 chiefly on non-irrigated land. The
exports, however, are small, almost all the crop being used locally. The
chief difficulties are the supply of water, labour and transport
facilities. Lord Cromer in his report on the Sudan for 1906 remarks
that: "There seems to be some reason for thinking that the future--or at
all events the immediate future--of Sudan agriculture lies more in the
direction of cultivating wheat and other cereals than in that of
cultivating cotton."

_West Africa._--Cotton has long been grown in the various countries on
the west coast of Africa, ginned by hand or by very primitive means,
spun into yarn, and woven on simple looms into "country cloths"; these
are often only a few inches wide, so that any large cloths have to be
made by sewing the narrow strips together. These native cloths are
exceedingly durable, and many of them are ornamented by using dyed yarns
and in other ways.

Southern Nigeria (Lagos) and northern Nigeria are the most important
cotton countries amongst the British possessions on the coast. From the
former there has been an export trade for many years which fluctuates
remarkably according to the demand. Northern Nigeria is the seat of a
very large native cotton industry, to supply the demand for cotton robes
for the Mahommedan races inhabiting the country. The province of Zaria
alone is estimated to produce annually 30,000 to 40,000 bales, all of
which is used locally. Northern Nigeria contributes to the cotton
exported from Lagos. The country offers a fairly promising field for
development, especially now that arrangements have been made for
providing the necessary means of transport by the construction of the
new railways. The profits obtained from ground-nuts (_Arachis hypogea_)
in Gambia, gold mining in the Gold Coast, and from products of the oil
palm (_Elaeis guineensis_) in the palm-oil belt serve to prevent much
attention being given to cotton in these districts.

  _Exports of Cotton from Lagos._

  1865            868 bales of 500 lb.
  1869           1785    "      "
  1900             48    "      "
  1901             15    "      "
  1902             25    "      "
  1903            582    "      "
  1904           1725    "      "
  1905           2578    "      "


  _Exports of Cotton from British West Africa_, 1904, 1905 and 1906.

  +----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
  |                            |   1904.   |   1905.   |   1906.   |
  +----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
  |                            |   Bales   |   Bales   |  Bales    |
  |                            | (500 lb). | (500 lb). | (500 lb). |
  | Gambia                     |    120    |      5    |      0    |
  | Sierra Leone               |     56    |    139    |    176    |
  | Gold Coast                 |    115    |     50    |    186    |
  | Southern Nigeria and Lagos |   2296    |   2771    |   5392    |
  | Northern Nigeria           |    574    |    250*   |    712    |
  |                            +-----------+-----------+-----------+
  |           Total            |   3161    |   3215    |    6466   |
  +----------------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+
    *Approximately.

_Nyasaland (British Central Africa).--_The cultivation of cotton on a
commercial scale is quite new in Nyasaland, and although general
conditions of soil and climate appear favourable the question of
transport is serious and labour is not abundant. The exports were
equivalent to 2 bales of 500 lb. in 1902-1903, 114 bales in 1903-1904,
570 bales in 1904-1905, 1553 bales in 1905-1906 and 1052 bales in
1906-1907. In the lower river lands Egyptian cotton has been the most
successful, whilst Upland cotton is more suited to the highlands.

_British East Africa and Uganda.--_In these adjoining protectorates wild
cottons occur, and suitable conditions exist in certain localities.
Experimental work has been carried on, and in 1904 Uganda exported about
43 bales of cotton, and British East Africa about 177 bales. In 1906 the
combined exports had risen to 362 bales, including a little from German
East Africa. In 1904-1905 there were some 300 acres under cotton in
British East Africa. Lack of direct transport facilities is a
difficulty. Some of the native cottons are of fair quality, but Egyptian
cotton appears likely to be best suited for growing for export.

_India_ is probably the most ancient cotton-growing country. For five
centuries before the Christian era cotton was largely used in the
domestic manufactures of India; and the clothing of the inhabitants then
consisted, as now, chiefly of garments made from this vegetable product.
More than two thousand years before Europe or England had 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 received no recorded improvement. The people, though
remarkable for their intelligence whilst Europe was in a state of
barbarism, made no approximation to the mechanical operations of modern
times, nor was the cultivation of cotton either improved or considerably
extended. Possessing soil, climate and apparently all the requisite
elements from nature for the production of cotton to an almost boundless
extent, and of a useful and acceptable quality, India for a long series
of years did but little towards supplying the manufactures of other
countries with the raw material which they required. Between the years
1788 and 1850 numerous attempts were made by the East India Company to
improve the cultivation and to increase the supply of cotton in India,
and botanists and American planters were engaged for the purpose. One
great object of their experiments was to introduce and acclimatize
exotic cottons. Bourbon, New Orleans, Upland, Georgia, Sea Island,
Pernambuco, Egyptian, &c., were tried but with little permanent success.
The results of these and similar attempts led to the conclusion that
efforts to improve the indigenous cottons were most likely to be
rewarded with success. Still more recently, however, experiments have
been made to grow Egyptian cotton in Sind with the help of irrigation.
Abassi has given the best results, and the experiments have been so
successful that in 1904-1905 an out-turn of not less than 100,000 bales
"was prophesied in the course of a few years" (Report of Director, Land
Records and Agriculture). The average annual production in India
approximates to 3,000,000 bales. The area under cotton in all British
India is about 20,000,000 acres, the crop being grown in a very
primitive manner. The bulk of the cotton is of very short staple, about
three-quarters of an inch, and is not well suited to the requirements of
the English spinner, but very large mills specially fitted to deal with
short-stapled cottons have been erected in India and consume about
one-half the total crop, the remainder being exported to Germany and
other European countries, Japan and China. In 1906 the United Kingdom
took less than 5% of the cotton exported.

  _Cotton Production in British India._[3]

  1859         1,316,800 bales of 500 lb.
  1904         3,172,800   "       "
  1905         2,848,800   "       "
  1906         4,038,400   "       "

About 50% of the cotton produced is consumed in Indian mills and the
remainder is exported.

_China._--Cotton has not been cultivated in China from such early times
as in India, and although cotton cloths are mentioned in early writings
it was not until about A.D. 1300 that the plant was grown on any
considerable scale. There are no figures obtainable as to the
production, but it must be very large, considering that the crop
provides clothing for a large proportion of the population of China.
During recent years a considerable quantity of cotton has been exported,
but more than a compensating amount of raw cotton, yarns and textiles,
is imported. An estimate of the crop puts it at about 1,500,000 bales.

_Korea_ is stated to have originally received its cotton plants from
China some 500 years ago. Conditions are well adapted to the cultivation
of the plant, and since the cessation of the Russo-Japanese War the
Japanese have undertaken the development of the industry. Figures are
difficult to obtain, but an official report from the Japanese Residency
General in 1907 estimated the crop at about 214,000 bales, all being
used locally. In the future Korea may become an important source of
supply for Japan, especially if, as appears likely, Korea proves suited
to the cultivation of American cotton.

_Japan_ received cotton from India before China, and the plant is
extensively grown, especially in West and Middle Japan. The production
is not sufficient to meet the home demand; during the five years of
normal trade before the war with Russia Japan imported annually about
800,000 bales of cotton, chiefly from British India, China and the
United States, and during the same period exported each year some 2000
bales, mainly to Korea.

_Dutch East Indies._--In Java and other Dutch possessions in the East
cotton is cultivated. A considerable amount is used locally, and during
the six years ending in 1907 the surplus exported ranged from about
24,000 to 40,000 bales per annum.

_Russia._--Some cotton is produced in European Russia in the southern
Caucasus, but Turkestan in central Asia is by far the more important
source of Russian-grown cotton. In this region cotton has been
cultivated from very early times to supply local demands, and to a minor
degree for export. Since about 1875 the Russians have fostered the
industry, introducing American Upland varieties, distributing seed free,
importing gins, providing instruction, and guaranteeing the purchase of
the crops. The Trans-Caspian railway has been an important factor;
almost all the cotton exported passes over this line, and the statistics
of this trade indicate the progress made. The shipments increased from
250,978 bales in 1896-1897 to 495,962 bales in 1901-1902--part, however,
being Persian cotton. The production of cotton in Russia in 1906 was
estimated at 675,000 bales of 500 lb. each. About one-third of the
cotton used in Russian mills is grown on Russian territory, the
remainder coming chiefly from the United States.

_Asia Minor._--Smyrna is the principal centre of cotton cultivation in
this region. A native variety known as "Terli," and American cotton, are
grown. The general conditions are favourable. According to the Liverpool
_Cotton Gazette_, Asiatic Turkey produced in 1906 about 100,000 bales,
and Persia about 47,000 bales. Cotton was formerly cultivated profitably
in Palestine.

_Australasia._--The quantity of cotton now produced in Australasia is
extremely small. Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia possess
suitable climatic conditions, and in the first-named state the cotton
has been grown on a commercial scale in past years, the crop in 1897
being about 450 bales. Considerable interest attaches to the
"Caravonica" cotton raised in South Australia, which has been
experimented with in Australia, Ceylon and elsewhere. It is probably a
hybrid between Sea Island and rough Peruvian cotton, but lacks most of
the essential features of Sea Island.

In _Fiji_ the cotton exported in the 'sixties and 'seventies was worth
L93,000 annually; but the cultivation has been practically abandoned. In
1899 about 60 bales, and in 1900 about 6 bales, were exported. During
1901-1903 there were no exports of cotton, and in 1904 only 70 bales
were sent out.

Into the _Society Islands_ Sea Island cotton was introduced about
1860-1870. Up to the year 1885 there was an average yearly export
equivalent to about 2140 bales of 500 lb., after which date the export
practically ceased. The industry has, however, been revived, and in 1906
over 100 bales, valued at L1052, were exported.     (W. G. F.)


MARKETING AND SUPPLY

  Moving the harvest to the ports.

In the days of slave-grown cotton, the American planters, being men of
wealth farming on a large scale, consigned the bulk of their produce as
a rule direct to the ports. Now, however, a large proportion of the crop
is sold to local store-keepers who transfer it to exporting firms in
neighbouring cities. The cultivators, whether owners of the plantations,
as is usual in some districts, or tenants, as is customary in others,
are financed as a rule by commission agents. The decline of "spot" sales
at the ports, partly but not entirely in consequence of the appearance
of the small cultivator, has proceeded steadily. Hammond[4] has
constructed a table from information supplied by the secretaries of the
cotton exchanges at New York, Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans
and Galveston, showing the sales of "spot" cotton at those ports for the
twenty-two years between 1874-1875 and 1895-1896, and in all cases an
absolute decline is evident. The receipts of cotton in the season
1904-1905 at the leading interior towns and ports of the United States
are given below.

  _Receipts of Cotton at 28 Interior Towns._
  (In Thousand Statistical Bales of 500 lb. each.)

  Brenham, Tex.        17  |  Memphis, Tenn.       984
  Dallas, Tex.         96  |  Nashville, Tenn.      19
  Shreveport, La.     256  |  Selma, Ala.          126
  Little Rock, Ark.   219  |  Montgomery, Ala.     211
  Helena, Ark.         91  |  Eufaula, Ala.         29
  Vicksburg, Miss.    100  |  Columbus, Ga.         74
  Columbus, Miss.      57  |  Macon, Ga.            87
  Natchez, Miss.       76  |  Albany, Ga.           35
  Atlanta, Ga.        134  |  Houston, Tex.      2,423
  Rome, Ga.            72  |  Meridian, Miss.      133
  Augusta, Ga         446  |  Cincinnati, Ohio     167
  Columbia, S.C.       68  |  Yazoo City, Miss.     65
  Newberry, S.C.       17  |                      ----
  Charlotte, N.C.      21  |  Total               6712
  Raleigh, N. C.       19  |                     -----
  St Louis, Mo.       672  |  Crop.             13,565

  _Receipts of Cotton at American Ports._
  (In Thousand Statistical Bales of 500 lb. each.)

   Galveston, Tex.  2,879  |  Boston, Mass.          84
   New Orleans, La. 2,690  |  Philadelphia, Pa.      14
   Mobile, Ala.       330  |  Brunswick, Ga.        200
   Savannah, Ga.    1,877  |  Pensacola, Fla.       187
   Charleston, S.C.   225  |  Minor Ports           518
   Wilmington, N.C.   375  |                     ------
   Norfolk, Va.       820  |    Total            10,295
   Baltimore, Md.      62  |                     ------
   New York            34  |    Crop             13,565

Galveston and Savannah have risen considerably in relative importance of
late years.


  Ginning and packing.

Before the Civil War each planter would have his own gin-house. Now,
however, ginning is a distinct business, and one gin will serve on an
average about thirty farmers. Moveable gins were tried for a time in
some places; they were dragged by traction engines from farm to farm,
like threshing machines in parts of England, but the plan proved
uneconomical because, among other reasons, farmers were not prepared to
meet the cost of providing facilities for storing their cotton. In
addition to the small country ginneries, large modern ginneries have now
been set up in all the leading Southern market towns. The cotton is
pressed locally and afterwards "compressed" into a very small compass.
The bales are usually square, but cylindrical bales are becoming more
common, though their cost is greater. In the latter, the cotton is
arranged in the form of a rolled sheet or "lap." Owing to complaints of
the careless packing of American cotton, attention has been devoted of
late to the improvement of the square bale.


  English ports of entry.

London used to be the chief cotton port of England, but Liverpool had
assumed undisputed leadership before the 19th century began. Some
arrivals have been diverted to Manchester since the opening of the
Manchester ship canal; shipments through the canal from the 1st of
September to the 30th of August in each year for the decade 1894-1895 to
1904-1905 are appended--six to eight times as much is still unloaded at
Liverpool.

A Manchester cotton-importing company was recently formed for increasing
deliveries direct to Manchester, and establishing a "spot" market there,
an end to which the Manchester Cotton Association had directed its
efforts for some time past. The latter association was established at
the end of 1894, with a membership of 265, in the interests of those
spinners who desired importations direct to Manchester. The objects of
the association are officially stated to be: (1) to frame suitable and
authoritative forms of contract, and to make rules and regulations for
the proper conduct of the trade; (2) to supervise and facilitate the
delivery of the importations of cotton at the Manchester docks to the
various consignees; (3) to provide and maintain trustworthy standards of
classification; (4) to procure and disseminate useful information on all
subjects pertaining to the trade; (5) to act in concert with chambers of
commerce and other bodies throughout the world for mutual protection;
(6) to establish a market for cotton at Manchester. Spinning members
preponderate, but almost all the Manchester cotton merchants and cotton
brokers have also joined the association. The importance of the original
spinners' representation on the association is shown by the fact that
they worked over 14,000,000 spindles: in December 1905 the spindles
represented by members had risen to nearly 20,000,000. Some 73,000 looms
are also represented. As most of the Lancashire cotton mills lie far
from Manchester, direct importations to that city do not usually
dispense with a "handling," and frequently save little or nothing in
freight rates, though in some cases the economy derived from direct
importation is considerable. One gain accruing to Lancashire from the
Canal, however, is that its competition has brought down railway
rates.


  Cotton market methods.

Fundamental alterations have been made in the structure of the leading
cotton markets, and in methods of buying and selling cotton, in the last
hundred years. We shall not attempt to trace the changes as they
appeared in every market of importance, but shall confine our attention
to one only, and that perhaps the most important of all, namely, the
market at Liverpool. This selection of one market for detailed
examination does not rob our sketch of generality, as might at first be
thought, since broadly the history of the development of one market is
the history of the development of all, and on the whole the economic
explanation of the evolution that has taken place may be universalized.

  _Cotton landed at the Port of Manchester since the Canal was opened._
     (In thousand Bales.)
  The season is from the 1st of September to the 31st of August each year.

  +----------------------------+---------+----------------------------------+
  |                            |Jan. 1894|              Season              |
  |                            |         +------+------+------+------+------+
  |                            |to Aug.  | 1894-| 1895-| 1896-| 1897-| 1898-|
  |                            |31, 1894.| 1895.| 1896.| 1897.| 1898.| 1899.|
  +----------------------------+---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |American                    |    21   |  32  | 121  | 211  | 245  | 311  |
  |Egyptian                    |     1.4 |  34  |  68  |  88  |  98  |  84  |
  |East Indian                 |    ..   |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |
  |West African                |    ..   |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |
  |                            +---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |          Total             |     22  |   66 |  189 |  299 |   344|  395 |
  |                            +---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |Total American Crop*        |   7,549 | 9,901| 7,157| 8,757|11,199|11,274|
  |Total Egyptian Crop (in     |         |      |      |      |      |      |
  |  bales of 7-1/2 cantars)** |     657 |   615|   703|   783|   872|   745|
  +----------------------------+---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |                            |                    Season                  |
  |                            +---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |                            |  1899-  | 1900-| 1901-| 1902-| 1903-| 1904-|
  |                            |  1900.  | 1901.| 1902.| 1903.| 1904.| 1905.|
  +----------------------------+---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |American                    |   415   | 442  | 421  | 478  | 365  | 552  |
  |Egyptian                    |   136   | 107  | 125  | 145  | 148  | 183  |
  |East Indian                 |   ..    |  ..  |  ..  |   2.5|   6  |   1.3|
  |West African                |   ..    |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |  ..  |    .1|
  |                            +---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |          Total             |   551   |  549 |  546 | 626  | 519  |  736 |
  |                            +---------+------+------+------+------+------+
  |Total American Crop*        | 9,436   |10,383|10,680|11,011|13,565|10,727|
  |Total Egyptian Crop (in     |         |      |      |      |      |      |
  |  bales of 7-1/2 cantars)** |   868   |   723|   849|   867|   846|   778|
  -----------------------------+---------+------+------+------+------+------+
     * Commercial crop.
    ** A cantar is 99.05 lb. avoirdupois.


  Evolution of broking.

Originally cotton was imported by the Liverpool dealer as an agent for
American firms or at his own risk, and then sold by private treaty,
auction, or through brokers, to Manchester dealers, who retailed it to
the spinners. This statement is, of course, only roughly correct. Some
Manchester dealers imported themselves, and some spinners bought direct
from Liverpool importers, but the rule was the arrangement first
described. Early in the 19th century it became customary for Manchester
dealers and Liverpool importers to carry on business with one another
through representatives known as "buying" and "selling" brokers. About
this time the broker of cotton only began to specialize from the ranks
of the brokers who dealt in all kinds of colonial produce. Previously
there had not been enough business done in cotton to make it worth any
person's while to devote himself to the buying and selling on commission
of cotton only. The evolution of the distinct business of cotton broking
is readily comprehensible when we remind ourselves that the
requirements, as regards raw material, of all spinners are much alike
generally, and that no spinner could afford to pay an expert to devote
himself entirely to purchasing cotton for his mill.

So far change had been gradual, but the success of the Manchester and
Liverpool railway undermined beyond repair the old system of doing
business. Spinners could easily run over to Liverpool and buy their
cotton from the large stocks displayed at that port. Before the railway
was opened some spinners had been in the habit of making their purchases
of raw material in Liverpool, but the great inconveniences of the
journey, combined with less easy terms for payment than were usual in
Manchester, prevented any great numbers from departing from the beaten
track. Cotton dealers up to this time had regularly financed the
spinners, who were frequently men of little capital, by allowing long
credit, and had even employed them to spin on commission. As men of
substance increased among the ranks of the spinners, the Manchester
cotton dealers found it impossible to retard a movement set on foot by
the prospects of such appreciable advantages. Ultimately many of the old
Manchester cotton dealers became brokers for their old customers. In
1875 there were said to be upwards of 100 cotton dealers in Manchester,
but from that time onward their members steadily declined. It is
interesting to observe that a later development of transport between
Manchester and Liverpool, namely, the Manchester Ship Canal, has drawn
back into Manchester a part of the cotton market which was attracted
from Manchester into Liverpool by the famous improvement in transport
opened to the public three-quarters of a century ago.

The centralization of the cotton market in Liverpool fixed firmly the
system of buying through brokers, for the Liverpool importer, or his
broker, was in no sense a professional adviser to the spinners,
informally pledged to advance the latter's interests, as the old
Manchester dealers had been. The system was rendered comparatively
inexpensive by the drop in commissions from 1 to 1/2% which had followed
the adoption of selling by sample. This custom of buying and selling
through brokers continued unshaken until the laying of the Atlantic
cable tempted selling brokers occasionally, and even some buying
brokers, to buy direct from American factors by telegraph and thus
transform themselves into quasi-importers. The temptation was made the
more difficult to resist by the development of "future" dealings. When
the agents of the spinners, that is, the buying brokers, by becoming
principals in some transactions, had acquired interests diametrically
opposed to those of their customers, the consequent feeling of distrust
among spinners gave birth to the Cotton Buying Company, which,
constituted originally of twenty to thirty limited cotton-spinning
companies, represents to-day nearly 6,000,000 spindles distributed among
nearly one hundred firms. Its object was to squeeze out some middlemen
and economize for its members on brokerage. This company, it is said,
helped to attract the brokers back to the spinners, and an informal
understanding was arrived at that the buying broker should not figure
both as agent and principal in the same transaction.


  Cotton-Clearing house, Cotton Bank and periodic settlement of
    "differences."

By 1876 "forward" operations had become so vast and complicated that a
cotton-clearing house had to be established to deal with the confusing
networks of debits and credits created by them. Its principle was
exactly that of the clearing houses used by the railways and the banks,
the cancellation of indebtedness and discharge simply of balances. The
final settlement of a "future" contract involved usually a crowd of
persons, and the passage of large sums of money backwards and forwards,
so that the amount of cash required for circulation on the exchange
became unreasonably excessive and an annoying waste of time was
entailed. The cotton-clearing house substituted book-keeping for the
bulk of these payments. The establishment of the Cotton Bank naturally
followed. Now debts are discharged in the first instance by vouchers.
Dealers pass their debit and credit vouchers into the Cotton Bank and
pay or receive the balances which they owe or are entitled to. In order
to protect dealers against the losses due to the insolvency of those
with whom they have had transactions, weekly settlements on the exchange
have been made compulsory; between brokers and their clients they are
also usual. At the settlement, every member of the exchange receives the
"differences" owing to him and pays those which he has incurred. Thus if
a person holds futures for 10,000 bales which stood at 5.20 on the last
settlement day and now stand at 5.30, and in the course of the previous
week has sold 5000 bales of "futures" at 5.10, he receives 10,000 X
(10/100)d. on his old holding, and has to pay 5000 X (20/100)d. on his
sales, and therefore on balance neither receives nor pays. Differences
may be very large sums. The unit of a "future" being 100 bales, an
alteration in the price of cotton of .01d. causes a difference on each
unit of L2. Periodic settlements are obviously periodic tests of the
solvency of dealers. If the test of the settlement were not frequently
applied, speculators who were unfortunate would be tempted to plunge
deeper until finally some became insolvent for large sums. As it is, the
speculator who has incurred losses beyond his means tends to be
discovered before his creditors are heavily involved. Settlement days
fall on Thursday, and the closing prices on the preceding Monday are
taken as the basis of the settlement. From all differences interest at
5% is deducted for the time between settlement day and the tenth day of
the second month on which the "future" elapses, since settlement terms
mean that money is paid in instalments before it is actually due. To the
admission of periodic settlements there was for a time vehement
opposition on the ground that the door would be opened to gambling on
"differences." Hence at first, in 1882, they were used only by a section
of the market constituted of members who had voluntarily agreed to do
business with one another upon these terms alone. By 1884, however, the
advantages of "settlement terms" became so evident that they were
adopted by the Cotton Association, at first for fortnightly periods,
with the saving clause originally that they should not be compulsory.


  Origin of Liverpool Cotton Association.

As soon as the clearing house was set up it became evident that
"futures" were an impossibility away from it. At the same time "futures"
were becoming an increasing necessity to importers, because through
"futures" alone could they hedge on their purchases of cotton, or buy
when the market seemed favourable, and they were not prepared to assume
heavy risks. Now from the clearing house importers were rigorously
excluded, and on invoking the aid of "futures," therefore, they were
penalized to the extent of double broker's commission, one commission
being charged on the sale of the "futures" and one on their purchase
back. The importers, therefore, found it necessary to establish a club
of their own, the Liverpool Cotton Exchange, which they as rigorously
guarded against brokers. The split in the market so caused was so
damaging to both parties that a satisfactory arrangement was eventually
agreed upon, and both institutions were absorbed in the Liverpool Cotton
Association.


  Publication of information relating to demand and supply.

A condition of specialist dealers working to the public service is that
they should not act in the dark. They must watch demand, be able to form
reasonable anticipations of its movements, and at the same time know
the existing stocks of cotton, the sales taking place from day to day,
and the best forecasts of the coming supplies. A man accustomed to
devote the whole of his time to the study of demand and supply in
relation to cotton, after some years of experience, will be qualified
ordinarily to form fairly accurate judgments of the prices to be
expected. His success depends upon his ability to interpret rightly the
facts and intangible signs with which he is brought in contact. The
information at the disposal of dealers has steadily enlarged in volume
and improved in trustworthiness, though some of it is not yet invariably
above suspicion, and the time elapsing between an event and the
knowledge of it becoming common property has been reduced to a fraction
of what it used to be, in consequence chiefly of the telegraph and
cables. All sales that take place on the Exchange must be returned.
Estimates are published of the area under cotton cultivation, and
conditions of the American crop are issued by the American agricultural
bureau at the beginning of the months of June, July, August, September
and October of each year. To represent the standard of perfect
healthiness and exemption from injury due to insects, or drought, or any
other causes, one hundred is taken. The estimates for 1901 to 1905 are
given, to illustrate their variations:--

  +-------+----------+----------+----------+-----------+----------+
  | Year. | June 1st.| July 1st.| Aug. 1st.| Sept. 1st.| Oct. 1st.|
  +-------+----------+----------+----------+-----------+----------+
  | 1901  |   81.5   |   81.1   |   77.2   |    71.4   |   61.4   |
  | 1902  |   95.1   |   84.7   |   81.9   |    64.0   |   58.3   |
  | 1903  |   74.1   |   77.1   |   79.7   |    81.2   |   65.1   |
  | 1904  |   83     |   88     |   91.6   |    84.1   |   75.8   |
  | 1905  |   77.2   |   77     |   74.9   |    72.1   |   71.2   |
  +-------+----------+----------+----------+-----------+----------+

These estimates are the averages of separate estimates which are
published for the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia,
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee.
The official figures are supplemented from time to time by numerous
private forecasts, for instance those in "Neild's circular." Ellison, in
his work on the cotton trade of Great Britain, traces in detail the
increase in the volume of information collected and made public. At the
close of the 18th century there was a tacit understanding among brokers
to supply one another with information. There were no printed circulars,
except the monthly prices current of all kinds of produce, but brokers
used to send particulars of business done to their customers in letters.
These letters were the origin of circulars. Messrs Ewart and Rutson
pioneered in 1805 by issuing a weekly account of the sales and imports
of cotton, and three years later three such circulars were on the
market, though Hope's alone was confined to cotton. For the first
associated circular of any importance, the market had to wait until
1832. The issue of this circular by subscribing firms, on the basis of
particulars collected by brokers appointed at a weekly meeting, gave
rise in 1841 to the Cotton Brokers' Association, to which the
development of the market by the systematizing of procedure is largely
due. The rest of the tale may be told in Mr Ellison's own words:--

  "Down to 1864 the leading firms continued to issue weekly market
  reports, but in that year the association commenced the publication of
  an associated circular. This was followed in the same year by the
  _Daily Table_ of sales and imports, which in 1874 was succeeded by the
  present more complete _Daily Circular_. To these publications were at
  various times added the annual report, issued in December, the
  American crop report, issued in September, and the daily advices by
  cable from America, issued every morning."[5]


  Futures.

We shall now enter upon a detailed analysis of "forward" operations. The
term "futures" is used broadly and narrowly: broadly it is a generic
term denoting "futures" in the narrow sense, and also "options" and
"straddles"; narrowly it implies merely contracts for future delivery at
a price fixed in the present. Again we must distinguish between the
"future" contracts for the delivery of a particular kind of cotton,
which may be entered into by spinners and their brokers, and are real
purchases in the sense that the spinners want delivery of the cotton
referred to, and the "futures," which always relate to the same grade
of cotton, and are drawn up according to certain forms and circulate on
the exchange as media for the shifting of risks connected with purchase
and sale. The latter are not "real" purchases in the sense given to that
term above, but fictitious because delivery of the cotton is not
desired. It will no doubt aid the understanding of the functions of the
latter if some explanation is offered of the needs met by the former,
which are sometimes known technically as "deferred deliveries."


  The spinner's risks.

When a spinner is required to quote prices of yarn for delivery in the
future he is fixed on the horns of a dilemma. If he does not at once buy
cotton, but quotes on the assumption that price will remain steady, he
may be involved in serious loss through his estimate being mistaken. If
he determines to buy cotton at once, others who risk more, and trust
their judgment of the future, may secure the contract. On first thoughts
it would seem desirable that all spinners should buy cotton outright to
cover their contracts, but on second thoughts the social disadvantage of
their doing so becomes apparent. Much buying might take place when
stocks were scanty, with the result that prices would be needlessly
forced up; and when stocks were plentiful demand might be weak and
prices, therefore, be unduly depressed. It is evident that the buying of
cotton on the principles suggested would be calculated to cause great
unsteadiness of prices, especially as cotton is not continuously
forthcoming, but is produced periodically in harvests. Demands for yarn
cannot be expected to come always at the most favourable time socially
for the distribution of the cotton. One way out of the difficulty is
that the spinner should exercise his judgment and buy his raw material
at what seems to him the most suitable times. But to this course there
are three objections. The first is that spinners would be performing the
two functions of industrial management and cotton buying (together with
others perhaps), and that in consequence the best industrial men would
not necessarily be able to maintain their position in the trade because
as buyers of cotton they might be unfortunate. The second is that
spinners being required to give attention to two distinct classes of
problems would be less likely as a body to become complete masters of
either. The third, which is not distinct in principle from the two
preceding, is that such limited speculation in cotton buying on the part
of spinners worried with other matters would not be likely to steady the
cotton market in any high degree. It may be assumed as desirable that
the demand for cotton should be so spread as to keep its price as steady
as possible--"steadiness" will be defined more exactly later--and that
to this end it is essential that specialists should devote themselves to
the task of spreading it. Such specialists have appeared in the cotton
brokers and dealers who make their living out of bearing the risks
connected with anticipating demand and supply in relation to cotton.
To-day a spinner who is asked to quote for deliveries of yarn for, say,
the next six months, may obtain from a broker quotations for deliveries
of the cotton that he needs, in quantities as he needs it, for the next
six months, and upon these quotations he may base his own for yarn. If a
spinner is pressed by a shipper to make quotations with refusal for two
or three days to give time for business to be settled by cable, it is
evidently not 

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