I have for some time intended to call your attention to the importance of attempting to grow fine cotton in Peru, but my inability to do justice to the subject, both from my being practically unacquainted with any mode of growing cotton and my general want of information, has hitherto prevented me; but as I made you a promise to that effect yesterday, I have endeavoured to put a few suggestions on paper, and hope that if they be carefully acted upon, some benefit may be derived from the experiments.

We have been (as you are aware) consumers of Peruvian cotton to some extent for the last six or eight months, and from the observations I have made on it during that time, I have no hesitation in saying that it possesses many excellences: it is long enough (almost too long), very sound in staple, and where well managed of a very good colour. Its defects are coarseness and harshness of staple, and if these could be removed I don't see what is to prevent its rivalling the Egyptian and Sea Islands cotton, any considerable approximation to which would very materially enhance its value, seeing that the highest quotation for Sea Island, was last week 30d. per lb. (2s. 6d.), whilst the highest for Peruvian was no more than 6 1/2 d.

With the view of improving the quality of the cotton in Peru, I would strongly recommend you to send seeds of various kinds, packed in air-tight boxes, particularly Sea Island and Egyptian, which some of the cotton-brokers would easily procure from the spinners using these descriptions, and, judging from what I hear of the climate of both countries, I should think the Egyptian would go to a very similar atmosphere and mode of cultivation to that of the country where it had been raised, which would probably render it more easy to acclimatize, and, of course, make it more likely to succeed than a sort of cotton which had been grown under dissimilar circumstances of soil, climate, and mode of cultivation.

These seeds when sown, ought (with the exceptions hereafter to be mentioned) to be planted at such a distance from all other cottons as to render it very unlikely for the wind or insects to carry the pollen from the flowers of one kind to those of another; for without this precaution, such is the tendency in many genera of plants to hybridize (and I believe, from what I have heard, there is this tendency in the different varieties of cotton) or cross- breed with each other, that, however good the quality in the first instance, they would all revert to the old variety in a year or two in consequence of the great preponderance of that variety over any newly-introduced ones. So much are the growers of turnip-seed for sale in England aware of the importance of attending to this, that the greatest precautions are taken to remove all cruciform plants from the vicinity of the field whilst their turnips are in flower, as there is such a tendency in them all to hybridize that the quality of the seed is often injured by the wild mustard (Sinapis arvensis) springing up in the same or the adjoining fields; whilst, on the other hand, by carefully selecting the best bulbs for seed, and by judiciously crossing one variety with another, new sorts are obtained, combining the excellences of both. This leads me to observe, that probably seed of foreign varieties of cotton may not thrive well in the first instance, and I would therefore strongly recommend the gentlemen who may make the experiment carefully to select seed from the plants on their estates which they see are growing the best and finest cotton, and sow them in contact with a few seeds of each of the sorts you may send out, carefully removing them in every instance as far as may be practicable from the vicinity of all other cotton; and then again sowing the seeds which are obtained from the plants thus raised in contiguity to each other, and carefully examining the 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 experiments I have made that the more frequently this cross- breeding takes place, the more easy (within certain limits) is it to extend it until cultivation has so completely changed the character of the plant that it bears very little resemblance to its original stock. There is nothing growing wild like our cabbages, turnips, and cauliflowers; nor even like our carrots, celery, and asparagus. Where are the originals of our wheat, barley, rye, beans, and peas? Many of these appear to be so completely transformed by cultivation that we don't know where to look for the parent stocks from which they originated. But I am forgetting cotton altogether, yet beg to refer to the preceding paragraph to show how much is owing to careful cultivation, and trust that it may not be without its use if my letter induces your friends to make the experiments here suggested, even though their first attempts are unsuccessful.

This letter was translated into Spanish and circulated in Peru, but with what success I do not know. It was also published in the "Gardener's Chronicle," and led to a reply from Dr. Royle, which occasioned the following letter.

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August 14th, 1845.