OBSERVATIONS OX CERTAIN EXTRA-INDIAN 

 ASIATIC COTTONS. 



|3Y 



II. iMAllTlN I.EAKE, 



Eonnnmic /JofanisI fo (•'oirrnm/'n/, J'nitf,i ri-oruicea ; 



AND 



l^AM PERSHAD, 



A.<.</. to /hf Ei'onomir /lolaiiis/, U. P 



Lvrnoin'CTioN. 

 The cultivation of cotton is restricted to tropical and isub- 

 tiopical countries, and the limiting factor which prevents cultiva- 

 tion in more northeily regions is one of temperature. A second 

 factor of equal importance, in that it mny assume the position of 

 a limiting one, is moisture. Though the natural moisture is, in 

 man}' cases, reinforced by irrigation, and cotton is consequently 

 grown in tracts where the rainfall is deticient, in other tracts this 

 is not so and here cultivation will be restricted to the legions of 

 sufficient rainfall. Throughout Asia, from Arabia in the West 

 to China on the East, cotton is grown wherever sufficiently 

 favourable climatic conditions are to be found. There is thus a 

 continuous tract of countr}?^ bordering the Northern limit 

 throughout which ecjfton is found to a greater or less extent, and 

 of which Northern India forms the central portion, separated 

 from the two wings b}' the mountainous country of Afghanistan 

 and Assam. To the West lie Persia and Arabia, separated bj'^ 

 no marked geographical or climatolbgical feature from Egypt, 

 aiid to the East the countries of Siahi and China. Froiii this 

 aspect Northern India mb're nfearly ngrefes with these countries 



