148 



WILD AND CULTIVATED COTTONS 



Localities 

 of best 

 cotton. 



Kabnami 

 area. 



Goghari 

 'area. 



Eumpta 

 area. 



It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that in regions so eminently 

 suited for cotton as those possessed of the black cotton soils, every little 

 variation in soil, climate, altitude, marine influence, &c., &c., should 

 have resulted in the production of special forms, adapted district by 

 district, if not field by field. The most favoured conditions, and the 

 localities accordingly of the finest Indian staples, are Surat, Broach, 

 Ahmedabad, and Kathiawar. But within even these four districts 

 there are well-marked minor areas that have apparently directly 

 originated some of the special forms of G. obtusifolium that have 

 presently to be indicated. 



In 1891, and again in 1894, I had the pleasure of studying the 

 cottons of Gujarat, and, on the last occasion, in company with 

 Professor Middle ton (now of Cambridge), who was at that time in 

 the service of his Highness the Maharajah of Baroda. We marched 

 from field to field, over the greater part of the provinces of Gujarat 

 and Kathiawar (when the cottons were in flower), and Professor 

 Middleton's great personal knowledge of the country enabled him 

 not only to point out to me the kaleidoscopic blendings of the plants 

 but the immediate relationship of these to the variations in soil. 

 (Of. 'Ann. Eept. Ind. Museum,' Calcutta, 1893-94, pp. 2-5.) 



The rich, deep black soil of Broach and Navsari is known as the 

 kahnam, and this was seen to produce the finest of all Indian staples, 

 accordingly called the kahnami or Broach deshi ( country) cottons. 



In Milburn's ' Oriental Commerce ' (1813, i. p. 280) special mention 

 is made of the Ahmood cotton being at that time the finest grade of 

 Surat cotton. 



The districts south-east of Baroda were noted by me to produce 

 a considerably lower grade of kahnami cotton. So also both sides of 

 the Dhadar river (between Baroda and Broach) were seen to change 

 into a calcareous loam with the appearance of a distinctive plant 

 known as the goghari. That particular cotton thus occupies an 

 intermediate zone between the plants of the deep black kahnam soil 

 proper and the lighter or shallower soils known as goradu to the 

 north and west. On these lighter loamy soils are to be found the 

 kanvi cottons of Bhavnagar, Palitana, Dholca, Amreli and Junagardh ; 

 the ambli (of Dhollera) and the wagria of Wadhwan, Viramgam, 

 Morvi, North Kathiawar and Kach. 



A similar classification doubtless prevails in the southern 

 Maratha country. The Kumpta (Coompta) cottons of Dharwar 

 and Belgaum are the southern equivalents of the kahnami cottons of 



