TNSTTrrTE AND COLLEGE, PUSA, FOR 1911-12. 8B 



Province, by Mr. Robertson Brown, who considered that 

 the quality of the samples would help the cultivators to 

 realise how cotton should be turned out for the market. 



To simplify this Report for purposes of reference 1 give 

 the information I have gathered from each Province 

 separately. 



The Central Provinces and Berar. — Mr. Low, the 

 Director of Agriculture, at the general meeting of Agri- 

 cultural Associations at Akola, in November, ably summa- 

 rised the present condition of cotton cultivation in his Pro- 

 vince and, as this paper was presumably only for the infor- 

 mation of members and visitors and will probably never 

 attain general circulation, I take the liberty of transcribing 

 such portions as pertain to my subject. Having beer- 

 honoured by being allowed to follow closely the w^ork done 

 in the Province, since its initiation, I can vouch for the 



requires no apology for its introduction. 



accuracy of the details, and the importance of the subject 



The centre of cotton work is at the Akola Experimental 

 Station, which w^as opened six years ago. Great care was 

 taken to select uniform areas for the different series of 

 experiments. This was done by growing juar over the 

 whole area to start with and by selecting areas of uniform 

 fertility as ascertained by experimental weighings. Where 

 the land was found to be uneven in fertility, as proved by 

 variations in the outturns, it was discarded as being un- 

 suited for experimental purposes. 



From the experiments, which have now been going on 

 for five years, several very practical lessons have already 

 been learnt. These are being carried into practice in the 

 non-experimental areas and are also being recommended for 

 adoption by other cotton growers. It has been proved that 

 the turn wrest plough is an excellent implement foi- eradi- 

 cating weeds and for deep and thorough cultivation gener- 

 ally; that the Hoshangabad iron tined hakhar is a very 

 useful implement for uprooting cotton stalks in the field 

 before preparing the land for the next year's crop ; that the 

 Akola hoe is a better implement than the Berar donra for 



