Moreton Bay Courier (Brisbane, Qld. : 1846 - 1861), Thursday 22 December 1859, page 2


COTTON FROM THE BOTANICAL

GARDENS.

To the Editor of the Moreton Bay Courier.

SIR,-A short time back I sent to some merchant friends in London a sample of cotton, grown by Mr. Walter Hill in our Botanic Garden, with a view to elicit an opinion from the trade as to its commercial value - that opinion, and some information on the same subject has reached me by this mail, and I enclose it to you for publication.

I am, Sir,

Your obedient servant,

JAMES WARNER.

(EXTRACT )

I am in receipt of your favor with the sample of cotton which I have forwarded to my agent in Liverpool and received the following reply:-

This sample is a long stapled cotton, fine, clean, and good color, but mixed with some short mossy waste - its chief defect is being rather tender. If it was a regularly imported cotton its market value to-day would be 16d. per lb.; but spinners will not give the full-up price for a new class of cotton until it has been fully tested by repeated use, and oomes to a regular steady im-port in fair quantities (say of several hundred bales) so that they can rely on being supplied with it. For a small chance lot of 20 to 50 bags the price it would bring in to-day's market would be about 14d. per lb.

"We have placed the sample before several fine spinners wbo bave corroborated our opinion, can didly admitting its day's value to be even over

I6d, if a regular imported description ; but as a,

thing for trial and of uncertain supply not one of them put its value over I4d., and some as low

as 12d. For your further information a small

parcel came similar to this sample and sold in a good market for 14d. per lb.

And for the guidance of your friends we would observe that there are now here several parcels of unginned Australian cotton, or if partially ginned they are still full of seeds, and these parcels are unsaleable. They cannot sell it at 4d. per lb. Unginned cotton is never to be shipped, freight and charges swallow up almost everything, and if inferior, it will not even pay these. As informa-tion for the planters, should you or your friends

be in communication with them - American Sea

Island cotton is grown only on the small islands, and on the coast, exposed to the full spray of the Atlantic, it is said to owe its strength greatly to the salt spray.

A. G. D. C.