FRANCIS HAMILTON (ONCE BUCHANAN). XXXV 
to on showing this to my good friend Mr, Wilkins who will oblige me much by giving you every 
assistance in his power to facilitate your works. 
5. ge te ise Qu 2 ки and Chittagong were sent to Sir Joseph Banks with descrip- 
NE ied ese you can have access through Mr. Brown, to whom I beg 
о be remembered. 
Those which I collected at Mysore and Nepal were given to Sir James Smith with dererip- 
tions and drawings. How you are to procure these unless they are purchased by the Linnean 
Society I know not. 
I know nothing of the Varnish tree if it be different from the Holigarna as you seem to 
think. By far the finest varnish work made in Ava is done at a town according to my ortho- 
graphy called Gnaun-u, а large town a little above Paukgan what you call Paghammew. I did 
not see the process but understood that the ware made even at Gnaun-u is reckoned inferior to that 
made in Siam. The basis used in both countries is ratan basket work which is covered with tho 
gum and then painted or guilded. 
| I have considerable doubt of the cotion of Ava, at least of that produced near the Ayrawadi, 
which alone I know, being superior to that of Hindustan, I indeed admit that it may be rather 
better than what is reared in the hilly countries surrounding Gangetic India and extending fiu 
lajmahal to Bombay where no doubt most of the Indian cotton is reared, but what grows on 
the plains especially to the north-west of Dacca is vastly superior and I beg to call your atten. 
tion to the report which I have made on (һө cultivation of that kind in my report on the Agri- 
culture of the Dinajpur district, which you can readily procure at the India house. A small portion 
of the country favourable for the fine cotton extends into the south-east corner of the district and 
is distinguished Ly being sufficiently high to escape inundation and by having a considerable 
portion of strong clay in its composition. The hill cotton however constitutes more than nine-tenths 
of the produce of India and you will find reports on its management in the agriculture of Bhagalpur. 
Its great inferiority to the American cotton. seems to me owing in a considerable measure to two 
circumstances: first, the want of proper machines for cleaning it and removing the seed as you justly 
state: secondly, the injury it receives in transportation in bales very badly secured from rain both 
in the carriage by land and by water; the Pateli boats especially in which it is conveyed being to 
the last degree miserable. Nor are those by which the cotton is brought from Surat to Bombay 
much better, while the manner in which the bales are exposed on Bombay green before they are 
shipped is truly deplorable. Were these two defects in management remedied the quality even of 
the hill cotton would be greatly improved and I have no doubt that the fine cotton produced 
near Dacca is one cause of the superiority of the manufacture, nor do I think that any American 
cotton is so fine, but then there can be no doubt that the American kinds have в longer filament 
and on that account are more fitted for European machinery. I think however that if the good 
Dacca cotton were sent home, which I do not suppose has ever been done, that our people would 
it superior to any other; and the first experiments to be tried on the 
Although I am inclined to think that there 
be taken in the sense used by the botanists of 
contrive to spin it and find : 
subject should I think be directed to that quarter. 
is really only one species of cotton plant, this is to U 
the true Linnean school; and by no means supersedes the necessity of choice in selecting seed of 
a good kind for cultivation. A Crab apple and a Newington Pepin belong to the same species, 
but you may work to eternity with the seed of a Crab without producing one eatable apple, much 
less a Pepin. I therefore think that the introduction of the best seed from America of the long 
stapled cotton would be of the utmost importance especially to try its | cultivation on the sea coast 
in places similar to where it grows in America. | 
Cotton is not so universally cultivated in India as you seem to think. The quantity reared 
in the south is very trifling: the great supply there comes from the Marhatta territory m the line 
east from Bombay as I have mentioned before: and except in the lend N.-W. from 2 the 
quantity raised on the Gangetie plains is inconsiderable. The banks of the —€— is ano үт great 
feld, and supplies а great quantity to China. The capability, however, of pr л 2 crop, 
