rth June.
Ir is not easy to deal with the question of moisture in cotton as a simple matter that can be regulated by permitting a fixed percentage of moisture, and confiscating all cotton that contains moisture in excess of that percentage. Different qu: ies of cotton of necessity contain different percentages of moisture, and regard must be paid to these differences. Phere are three qualities of Chinese cotton, steam-ginned, Nos. 1 and 2, Shanghai, and market cargo. steam-ginned is so named because the cotton has been ginned by steam power with gins of foreign construction, and this cotton is nearly always the highest in price, as- the "Chinese claim that it is the driest cotton on the market. The reason certainly is not that it is the best cotton, either as regards staple or colour, as it, invariably happens that through bad setting of the knives and rollers in the gins, the staple is damaged and the seed broken and mixed with the cotton. Furthermore no. c'assifica~ tion takes place as regards the bad boils, which contain discoloured, unripe, imperfectly developed, or dead titres, so that the extra price is not
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.