146 REPORT—1840. 
On the Growth of Cotton in India. By Dr. A. Burn. 
Samples were presented of four different kinds of cotton, besides some 
produced from Egyptian seed, all of which were cultivated last year at 
Kaira in Gujerat, the object being to show that, in the produce of the 
cotton plants indigenous to India, great variety existed. The cotton 
differed in several important points, the chief of which were, the length, 
colour, softness, dryness, evenness and strength of fibre. These being ad- 
mitted, together with the fact that all attempts have failed during the 
last twenty years to introduce successfully the culture of foreign 
varieties of cotton into India, it was argued, that the grand desideratum, 
the improvement of the staple, so as to equal American cotton, would 
best be attained by attention to the selection of indigenous seed, and 
improving it by cultivation, a point which has hitherto been entirely 
overlooked or neglected. The Egyptian cotton exhibited was remark- 
ably fine ; it had been valued in Glasgow at fifteen pence per pound ; 
of all the specimens it alone had been raised by irrigation. Dr. Burn 
remarked, that his experience had led him to the conclusion, that 
without the command of artificial irrigation no great quantity of 
cotton, superior in staple to Surat, could be produced in the Bombay 
presidency. The facilities, however, for irrigation in India were very 
great, and antiquarian research, aided by local tradition, and the 
scattered remains of tanks and canals, now everywhere observable, 
demonstratively proved that in former times irrigation was the means 
by which a vast population subsisted, or were protected from famine, 
consequent on the capricious failure of the annual monsoon rains. 
Surat cotton is all cultivated as an annual. The Gorea cotton is a 
perennial plant; none of it is ever exported to this country, being all 
consumed in the country. 
On the Growth of Cotton. By Mr. Fe.xtn. Communicated by 
Dr. LANKESTER. 
The subject of the growth of cotton-wool in British India engaged the 
attention of this Section last year, Major-General Briggs having thenread 
a paper on the subject. At present, hopes are entertained that the Ameri- 
can long-staple wool may be replaced by a long staple from Sea Island 
seed, to be grown in the Sunderbunds of Bengal, situated at the mouth of 
the Ganges, a district now jungle, but similar, in respect of its marshy 
soil and exposure to warmth, moisture and the influences of the sea, to 
islands on the American coast; which are circumstances that seem from 
experience to be absolutely necessary to the production of the length, 
fineness and general quality of the fibre in question. The seed of the 
plants of that class of Gossypium, known commonly as Sea Island, and 
picked with extraordinary care, were laid upon the table of the Section, 
in the hope that members who had the means of giving to an experi- 
ment the necessary care, and securing to the plants sufficient warmth, 
pure air and light, might be disposed to sow a few seeds and report 
