The cotton-plant is indigenous to the islands and sea-coasts of the Tropics, and its geographical limits of cultivation, on either side of the Equator, run to 40° of latitude in the north, and in the south to about 30°, but never as far south as 35° or 40°, in spite of the probable suitability of those latitudes. The plant hardly suffers from the greatest heats of a tropical summer, while very cold weather interrupts its organic functions. It requires a hot, moist atmosphere for its development, but the moisture must not be excessive, or the plant will grow too rapidly. It is doubtless thanks to these natural conditions that cotton-planting attained to a certain degree of development in the Territories of Chaco, Formosa, and Misionès as soon as the tillers of the soil became aware of its profitable nature. The cultivation of this valuable textile is not, however, new to this country. It was grown long ago, chiefly in Misionès, during the administration of the Jesuit Fathers, who made from it cloth for their own use, and also for purposes of trade. But with the expulsion of the members of the celebrated Company of Jesus, and the resulting depopulation of the countryside, decadence overcame this branch of agriculture, and finally an almost total extinction, until to the people of the country it was no more than a memory. Finally, in 1894, cotton was sown as an experiment in the Territory of Formosa; a few grains of the “Louisiana” and “Sea-Island” types, brought from the United States. The results were excellent, and encouraged the sowing of larger areas. There are now, in the various colonies founded in Chaco, which grow practically nothing but cotton, some 13,600 acres under cotton. It may to-day be asserted, says an official report, that Chaco is in the van of the Republic in the production of cotton; by reason of the area under cultivation, the quantity of cotton picked at each harvest, and the importance of its trade with the Buenos Ayres market.[72] In the short space of two years, from March 1902 to March 1904, the exports from Barranqueras, the port of this region, amounted to 850,564 lb. of cotton and 286,831 lb. of cotton-seed. From this we may well augur, as the above-mentioned report asserts, that Chaco will become a great cotton-producing country, on condition that various refractory factors are eliminated. [Footnote 72: See the notable monograph entitled: _Investigaciones algodoneras en los territorios del Chaco, Formosa y Misionès, año 1904_, by the agronomical engineer, Fidel Macial Perez, upon whose data we have drawn for this book.]