The Cotton Plant: Its History, Botany, Chemistry, Culture, Enemies, and Uses. US Department of Agriculture, Office of Experiment Stations, Bulletin No. 33.

Washington D.C. Government Printing Office; [GPO], 1896.

Octavo (23.5 x 15 cm.), 433 pages. Illustrated with four plates, thirty-two illustrations in the text, and a folding color graph. With a supplemental bibliography of cotton at the rear. FIRST EDITION. A detailed and significant survey of the cotton plant, which includes a history, from ancient times through the book's present, its botany, chemistry, varieties and cultivation. The culture of the plant for a variety of regions is also offered, along with a description of various experiments performed by the various Experiment Stations.Diseases of the plant, and its insect predators are also reviewed. Roughly the last seventy-five pages of the work address the by-products of cotton, especially cotton seed oil, outlining milling, marketing, and distribution, followed by a discussion of the food values of cotton seed oil, and the various experiments – English, American, and European – conducted to determine its viability as a food product. It must be noted that this detailed survey devotes a scant two pages to the subject of picking cotton, noting that this labor is "the most tedious and expensive operation in cotton growing" (page 264). In publisher's pebbled green cloth, blind-paneled and gilt titled at the spine. Some light staining or discoloration to boards. Ex libris stamp lightly to edges of text block and the same to the front paste down. Very good.

Price: $60.00