The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1897-12-18

from u lew Seeu Drought 1rOJl the
heart of equatorial Africa a few years
ago enough cotton has been grown to
prove without a doubt that he has
been the means of solving the prob
lem of profitable production, which
has SO long puzzled the political
economists of the country. The man
ner in which this cotton was accident
ally found smacks of the career of Bar
ney Barnato, the South African dia-
mond king. Indeed, at the same time
that Barnato was investing in the CLAW
pits at Kimberly and laying the founda-
ton of his fabulous fortunes another
~adventurer of the same r~esourceful
race was making his toilsome way
through the miasmatic swamps Of the
upper Congo on the road to the discov-
cry that may be of more Importance to
the commercial world than all the
gems from all the mines in the dark
continent.
One day in the autumn of 1894 atrav-
eler about 40 years of age, bronzed and
bearded from the effects OF the tropical
sun and along sea voyage, robust and
sinewy, signed the name of ssAdolph
Kyle, England" on the hotel register
at the Kimball house, and In the course
Of an interesting account of African
travel, told how he had discovered the
new cotton plant, a section Of which,
containing C5 pods, he had secured and
had preserved. He then went on to
say;
Il noticed IN travelling throuth this
country that your principal crop is
cotton. Now Ihave carried that piece
of stalk for many months, and it has
travelled over 6,000 miles of land and
sea, so that l doubt if the seed will
g~erminate, but want to give it to some
good fellow, who will experiment with
it, and see if it can be naturalized in a
cotton-growing country, where civilized
methods of cultivation are understood.''
A note vas dispatched to Thomas A.
jackson, who lives not far from the
city, and pn the next day he called on
Kyle at his rooms in the Kimball.
Farmer jackson is an east Tennes-
seean, a man of large experience in cot
ton7growing, and possesses a liberal
education and an inquiring turn Of
mind. He had been studying the
history of the cotton plant for
years, and as soon as he laid
ayes on the withered stalk that
had been carried SO many miles, he
saw that it was a different genus from
the shrub cotton of South America. or
the annual plant of Australia, the lat
ter being the variety which is COM
monty cultivated as short cotton all
over the south. He had a long talk
with Kyle, and, while others made
light Of the story, Jackson listened at
tentiyely, and finally carried off the
dilapidated specimen to his poor little
farm among the reddest of the red hills
of Georgia. Carefully he picked the
seed from the silken locks of cotton,
observing that many of the pods or
bolls contained five separate cells, i'm
stead of four, which is the rule with
ordinary cotton. Out of the 265 seed
secured, 50 terminated in the garden
plat where he planted them in the
spring of 1895.
The sturdy plants grew rapidly. put
ting forth first a pair of ordinary
leaves, and Immediately above them a
second leaf which grew from the
stem ABOUT Two Inches, then followed
a joint at which a cluster Of "squares'
or buds appeared, the leaf stalk CON
tinuing and terminating in Ia broad
thick leaf, while the portion be-
tween the cluster of buds and the stalk
thickened to the size of a lead pencil.
forming a support for the heavy bolls
or pods. The plants grew to a height
of u or Affect, putting forth alternate
ly the general leaf and the fruit-bear-
ing leaf, all the way to the top, and
continuing in full foliage till the frost
fell, except that the lower leaves
dropped as the bolls matured, SO that
by the time the cotton was open and
ready to pick the leaves.had disap-
peared, leaving only the snowy bolls
ready to be gathered free from trash
of plant stains.
The new discovery became noised
abroad, and cotton men from a long
distance came to see it. Every seed
was carefully picked out by hand, and
In 1S95 there We're enough to plans kali
an acre, less 10 square feet as Meas
ured by a cotton expert from Balti-
The lnnd com.posirp hia ltttle