Oct. 19.
A NUMBER of days ago several representatives of the cotton spinning industry of Shanghai paid a visit to the experimental grounds of the University of Nanking where work is proceeding, with the object of bringing about an improvement in the class of cotton produced in the country. This is a subject well-known to our readers, and in recent years frequent references have been made to it, but the importance of the work can never be sufficiently emphasized, and certainly not at this stage o* its development. With them the representatives of the cotton mills brought back to Shanghai various samples of what can be produced under the University's auspices, and one of these is of outstanding interest. This was a sample of cotston produced by the University from seeds of a plant found at Woosung three or four years ago. These, under the University's auspices, were cultivated on the most approved scientific lines, and the resultant raw cotton is something which may well be placed in the same category as varieties of what the trade knows as American Mid-dung. The importance of such a result, especially when taken in conjunction with the other work of the University, must appeal to large numbers outside those possessing technical knowledge of the cotton trade. It has so much impressed the students at Nanking with the possibilities of the China article that they have labelled this particular variety as ''Million Dollar Cotton'', and its quality is of a character to suggest to. the laymen that with the continued advance of the scientific process of cultivation now carried out under the auspices of the University of Nanking, there is no reason why China cotton should not rank with American at some future time.
If such is to be the case, it will mean greatly increased wealth for the country. Now looking "t this phase of the cotton industry we ought to put on record the fact that it has not been by haphazard methods that the results so far achieved have been brought about, nor will they be so brought about in the future. Without going too much into technical detail We may mention that when, following certain preliminary work, the University of Nanking three years ago started upon the scientific improvement of China cotton, two principal courses' presented themselves. One was the importation of seed from other countries, their acclimatization here and introduction to the native cotton farms. The other was a process of selection from the types of cotton already produced in the country and steps to bring the best samples obtainable to their highest and finest stage of bearing. Both courses have been of great value, and equally both have been attended by difficulties and probably disappointments, although the latter have not been peculiar to China. America had already found: that in certain cases attempts to produce superior cotton by acclimatizing imported seeds had-not succeeded, for where the climatic conditions differed from those of the original habitat of the cotton, degeneration was apt to set in after the second harvest. In certain districts of China, notably the moist Yangtze Valley, the experience has proved the same when American seed has been introduced, an added drawback here being that not only is the humidity different from the American cotton-growing belt, but also the dates of the seasons, although altering by only a few weeks. In other parts of the country, however, on the highest ground, for instance, the results through the introduction of American seeds have been gratifying and there ave grounds for the strongest optimism for the future. The same difficulty experienced through imported seeds has been encountered when attempts have been made to transmit Chinese seeds from one district to another, for variations in climate have led to the same degeneration noted above when the conditions have been somewhat different. As regards improvement in the purely native product, we learn- from the report of the University of Nanking that since the work started no fewer than 40,000 selections have been made of plants throughout the country in order to get at the most likely type for propagation here That means a vast amount of work, but, as we have seen, it is show-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.