wing in Corea.=--Lying directly to the west of Japan, this vast
peninsula has of late years been developing its cotton-growing. Five
centuries ago cotton was imported from China, and one sees on every hand
the influence of the Celestials. The cultivated plant is of the
perennial type, though it is planted annually, the old plants being dug
up and burned, the ash being used as a fertiliser. Statistics at present
are not to be relied upon, though it is supposed that something like
three quarters of a million acres are now under cultivation, giving on
the average about 250 pounds of cotton lint. As in the case of Japan
very little of this is exported, all of it or nearly so being spun and
woven at home on the most primitive of machines.

The chief districts engaged in growing cotton, nearly all of which lie
in the southern portion of the peninsula, are Hwang-Hi, Kyeng-Sang,
Chel-La, Kyeng Kwi, and Chung Cheog.

=Cotton-growing in China.=--Owing to the great difficulty of obtaining any
reliable statistical information, it is impossible to give anything
approaching accuracy as to number of pounds of cotton produced annually,
or number of acres devoted to the cultivation of the Cotton plant. This
much, however, is known, that for many centuries cotton cultivating has
been followed and that there has been within recent years a great
increase in the weight of the cotton crop as well as in the acreage. The
type of plant most generally cultivated is the herbaceous, and the
cotton resulting is only poor in quality. Little or no preparation is
made before sowing seed, which is generally done broadcast. As a result
there is much overcrowding, and as is inevitable, there is produced a
stubby plant with small bolls and much unripe cotton. On the terraces
of the hillsides something approaching cultivation is pursued, with the
result of a better crop.

Usually twenty weeks intervene between planting and picking, this latter
operation being mostly the work of children and women. The old cotton
stalks are afterward collected and dried for fuel.

Very few large plantations exist in China, most of them being only a few
acres in extent.

But little of the cotton grown at home is exported, most of it being
spun and woven by women, though some of the fibre is sent to Japan.

=Cultivation of Cotton in Egypt.=--It is now over thirty years since Sir
Samuel Baker, the great African traveller, wrote these words: "The Nile
might be so cont