232 KUMPTA COTTON AND ITS IMPROVEMENT 



Methods of growing " hKmjM" cotton. Although there are few peculiarities 

 in the cultivation of humjita cotton, a few words may be said with regard to it. 

 The land is prepai'ed for cotton by ploughing with the wooden plough, which 

 generally goes three to four inches deep or a little more. The first ploughing 

 is done after the fall of one or more good ante-monsoon showers in April or May. 

 During the early part of the rains, the land is simply harrowed once or twice 

 and any stubbles of the previous jowar {Sorghum vulgare) thus removed. The 

 seed is sown at the rate of seven pounds per acre in August or September. 

 The second half of August is the most common time. The usual method of 

 sowing is to drop it in the furrows of the drill, through bamboo tubes attached 

 to the tines. The method is rather more expeiLsive and less effective than 

 drilling, even using the ordinary country drill of Gujarat. The distance 

 between the rows varies from eighteen to twent^^-one inches, except in some 

 parts of Bijapur where it is twelve inches. The distance between the plants 

 is very irregular, as no thinning is done to regulate it. 



The rotation used is a two-com'se of joivar and cotton, or a three-course of 

 jowar, cotton and wheat. Whichever is adopted the jowar alone is manured,* 

 generally ^^ith five to six cartloads (about 2 tons) of cattle manm'e per acre. 



The cotton is ready, usually, for the first picking in February, and three 

 four, or five pickings at intervals of ten to fifteen days are needed to harvest 

 the kajjas {seed cotton). Belated bolls continue to be produced until the end 

 of April or the beginning of May. The average yield of kapas in the Jcimipta 

 districts is about 350 poimds of Jcapas, equal to ninety pounds of clean cotton 

 lint, but there are many farms where 600 pounds of kapas is normally obtained. 



IV. Variations in " kumpta " cotton. 



Kumpta cotton dift'ers from other types of cultivated Gossypium herbacemn, 

 and notably from those grown in Gujarat in several particulars. In most of 

 these, however, it is much more closely allied with the Jierhaceum cottons of 

 Madras than with those of the north of the Bombay Presidency. The main 

 points of difference with these last are as follows : — 



(I) Habit oj growth. The Gujarat herbacemn cottons [broach, hlio, 

 ghogari ) are bushy, that is to say, the normal type produces a number of 

 vigorous monopodia. These are much less abundant in kumpta cotton, and 

 hence by the side of the others, it appears to be erect and to possess much 

 less of the bushy character. As we shall see, this quality varies very much 

 in the various strains of kumpta, but the difierence bet-ween the predominant 

 type in the two cases cannot be mistaken. 



* Ife is usuallj' considered very bad practice to manure the cotton crop itself. 



