mbers of fungi, too numerous to mention here, work
serious injury to leaf, flower and boll in certain seasons of the year.

CHAPTER III.

CULTIVATION OF THE COTTON PLANT IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.

From what has already been said, it will be quite clear that the Cotton
plant will only successfully thrive in those regions on the earth's
surface where there are suitable temperature and soil, and a proper and
adequate supply of moisture both in the atmosphere and soil. When the
45th parallel of North Latitude is reached, the plant ceases to grow
except under glass or in exceptionally well favoured and temperate
districts. Below the Equator the southern limit is the 35th parallel.

With a model of the globe before him, the reader will see, if he mark
the two lines already named, what a small belt the "Cotton-growing zone"
is, compared with the rest of the globe, and yet in 1901 it is estimated
that no fewer than 10,486,000 bales of 500 lbs. net average each were
produced in the United States alone, 695,000 came from the cotton fields
of India, from Egypt 1,224,000, an increase of 600,000 bales in ten
years. This vast quantity does not include what was produced in other
countries, which we know in the aggregate was very considerable.

=American Cultivation of the Cotton Plant.=--Perhaps no country
illustrates the fact so well as does the United States, that the
variations in the quality of cotton are very largely--it may be said
almost entirely--due to distance from sea board, height above sea level
and difference of soil.

The surface geology of the Southern United States as a whole, is of a
most diversified character, and the following States in which cotton is
produced, in many cases show a similar variation.

North Carolina. Tennessee.
South Carolina. Alabama.
Georgia. Mississippi.
Florida. Louisiana.
Arkansas. Texas.

Perhaps Texas shows the greatest number of distinct soil areas, viz.,
eight. Height above the sea level has also a considerable influence upon
the plants cultivated, and only the hardier and more robust types are to
be found on the more elevated lands. At the beginning of the nineteenth
century South Carolina produced more cotton than any other State. Fifty
years later, Alabama was to the front. Ten years later, Mississippi led
the way, and in 1901 Texas occupied the premier position with 3,526,649