It is questionable whether cotton is strictly indigenous to the west coast of Africa or not; but it has certainly been grown by the natives for countless generations to supply local weaving industries, the products of some of which were famous long before the European arrived on the coast. These local industries still exist and absorb annually perhaps the equivalent of 10,000 bales of cotton or more in Nigeria alone. Several different species of indigenous cotton are grown in various parts of West Africa, and these are again subdivided into different strains which are especially suited to particular localities. Thus in Nigeria, the fuzzy seeded Gossypium Peruvianum or “Meko” cotton is mainly grown in the Southwest Provinces; Gossypium vitifolium or “Ishan” cotton, which has a black naked seed, is mainly grown in the north of the Benin Province, the Kabba and Benue Provinces; and Gossypium punctatum was formerly grown in many parts of the Northern Provinces. These indigenous cottons are all characterized by having short, strong rough lint which, when spun and woven by hand, makes a very coarse cloth, though it is a cloth that will stand very long and hard wear. They are not very suitable for spinning in cotton mills, and consequently fetch a very low price on the world market; in fact when the world price of cotton is low, these kinds are almost unsaleable at any price. The value of cotton as an export crop has always been realized by the European in West Africa and many attempts have been made in all the British Colonies both to stimulate production, and to improve the quality. Until quite recently these attempts had met with very little success except in Northern Nigeria; for the problem of finding improved varieties suitable for export proved to be very difficult to solve. Even to-day it has not yet been accomplished either in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast or in Sierra Leone, and cotton production in these areas has so far made no progress. In Northern Nigeria a solution was found by the introduction of an American Upland cotton—Allen's Longstaple—which proved able to adapt itself to the climatic conditions, and has now completely replaced the indigenous cottons in all the main cotton-growing areas.