cotton grown upon each of them, it is more than probable they will
find that _some_ of the plants will be varieties partaking of the
character of both the parent kinds, and by selecting the best of
these and sowing them only (still apart from all other cotton),
there is little doubt that much benefit will be derived by the
persevering and skilful cultivator.

I have heard it stated that the origin of Sea Island cotton is to
be traced to something of this kind. An observing and experimental
planter, by carefully examining his cotton, and by sowing his seed
only from those plants that produced the finest and longest
staple, at last arrived at the excellent quality which is now
known by that name.

Look, again, at what has been done in Egypt by the introduction of
better varieties of cotton. There these improved varieties have by
no means had a fair chance of showing what they are capable of
becoming, inasmuch as the wretched cultivator has not the
slightest inducement to improve their quality--he gets no more per
pound for the finest and cleanest cotton than he does for the
coarsest and dirtiest, and therefore it is not very likely to
improve under his care. But with all this neglect and want of
management, we can see by what it is, what it would most probably
become in the hands of an enterprising and intelligent man who
knew that every improvement he made in its quality would be to his
own advantage. Assuming that your Peruvian friends could so far
improve the quality of their cotton as to double its value in this
market (and I don't think myself too sanguine in expecting more
than this), with very little extra labour nearly all the
additional price would be profit.

But supposing even that cross-breeding, or hybridizing, as the
horticulturists call it, does not frequently occur naturally in
cotton, it is well known that it is very easy to effect it
artificially by prematurely unfolding the petals and with fine
scissors cutting away all the stamens before impregnation takes
place. This requires to be carefully done, so as not to injure the
petals, and they will then close again of themselves, and when
they expand naturally, then impregnate the stigma of the flower
with the pollen of the kind you want to cross with. We owe many of
our finest varieties of fruits to this practice. The late Mr.
Payne Knight was very successful in raising new varieties of many
sorts of fruit in this way, and it appears to me from the