The Commercial Products of India; Being an Abridgement of "The Dictionary of the Economic Products of India." (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 Excerpt: ...Useless controversies have engaged attention, such as whether there are fifty or more species, or only three, or even only one in the whole world; another, whether a single characteristic of supreme value can be discovered, upon which a classification of the forms might be based. The early authors divided the cottons into trees and bushes, or into perennials and annuals. It has now been established beyond dispute that all species of Gotutgpium under suitable environment are perennials if left alone, and may in time become large bushes or even small trees. Moreover, when cultivated they readily respond to environment, and when necessity exists become annuals or otherwise adapt themselves. On dry stony soils they are usually perennials, on rich loamy soils annuals, more especially if restrained by cold in the winter months or by a heavy periodic (monsoonic) rainfall or by infestations of pests. Some writers have placed confidence on the characteristics of the seed as affording a key to classification. If possessed of a double layer of wool, viz. an under-velvet or fuzz (as it has been called) and an outer layer or floss (the true wool or lint), such seeds have been regarded as denoting very different plants from those with a naked seed, that is to say, not possessed of the undercoating (fuzz). This conception originated the classification into album (white or fuzzy seeds) and nigrum (black or naked seeds). So again the fact of the seeds being free from each other or attached together into what has been called a "chain" or "kidney" mass, has been accepted as a further means of diagnosis. But as opposed to such views it has recently been shown that certain structural peculiarities have originated in consequence of adaptation to beneficial in...