106 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Sowing in 

 October. 



Swelling 

 fibre. 



British 

 Cotton- 

 growing 

 Associa- 

 tion. 



the fire is usually kindled. The high lands are selected for this crop, 

 and are ploughed from eight to twelve times up to September and 

 October, when the seeds are sown. This is done in parallel rows, 

 distant about a cubit from each other, and before the seeds are 

 dropped into the ground they are moistened with water. The cotton 

 plant is liable to injury from hailstorms, heavy rain, and caterpillars.' 

 ' Formerly the ground for cotton was allowed to lie fallow every 

 fourth year, and it appeared to be owing to the neglect of this 

 circumstance in the present day that the produce is now inferior in 

 quality to that of former times.' 



' The cotton of the northern division is said to swell less than the 

 produce of other parts of the country. This tendency of the fibre to 

 swell in bleaching is the criterion by which the weavers judge of its 

 quality, but whether it depends on any inherent property in the 

 cotton itself, or on the water used in the bleaching, is not known, 

 though there is reason to believe that it is principally owing to the 

 latter. The thread manufactured at Dumroy, which was reported 

 by Mr. Bebb, the Commercial Eesident, to swell the most, is found 

 by the weavers at present to be equal to the thread of the best 

 aurungs or to swell the least if bleached in Dacca, but the reverse, 

 as Mr. Bebb describes it, if the water of Dumroy be used in the 

 process.' 



Recent Opinions. At a conference held at Manchester, by the 

 British Cotton-growing Association (reported in the ' Manchester 

 Guardian ' of June 11, 1903), I was invited to address the meeting on 

 the subject of Indian-grown cottons. In the course of my remarks, 

 I drew attention to the subject of Dr. Taylor's observations regarding 

 the short-staple annual cotton plant of Dacca, from which the far- 

 famed muslins of that town were made. In the passages above I have 

 reproduced the more important statements from Taylor's ' Descriptive 

 and Historical Account of the Cotton Manufactures of Dacca,' and the 

 reader who cares to do so may thus verify the brief description given by 

 me at Manchester. I should not have alluded to this subject, however, 

 had not my accuracy been called into question by Mr. G. Greenway, 

 of Calcutta, in a long letter which appeared in the ' Manchester 

 Chamber of Commerce Monthly Eecord' (dated September 30, 1903). 

 I venture to think that a meaning has been given to my brief 

 extempore utterances that I neither intended nor think are implied 

 by the words which I actually used. All I wished to imply was that 

 perhaps the Dacca hand-spinners might still be able to teach the 



