304 COTTON-CULTIVATION. Chap. XXIV. 



well as for the hill tribes of the Neilgherries. The native 

 cotton is of two kinds, called oopum-parati and nadum parati^ 

 The seed of the latter is sown broadcast, in the same field with 

 cholum and cumboo.^ After the grain is cut, the ground is 

 ploughed between the plants four times, and in the next year 

 the cotton yields a small crop in July, and a larger one in the 

 following January. After the thu'd year the field is manured 

 and cultivated with grain for two years, cotton being again 

 sown when the third crop of gi'ain has been reaped. This 

 nadum cotton is very little cultivated in the Coimbatore dis- 

 trict. The chief product is the oopum, the best indigenous 

 cotton, raised, in rotations of two years, with cumboo and 

 cholum. 



The oopum cotton is raised on the black soil," an adhesive 

 black clay, while the little Bourbon cotton that is cultivated 

 is gro^sTi on red soil. It is picked very carelessly, and the bales 

 are so badly pressed that those which I passed in carts on the 

 road looked as if they would sink in like a feather-bed, if any 

 one sat upon them. 



Much pains have been taken by the Government for a 

 series of years to improve the method of cultivating cotton 

 in India, and to introduce American and other species ; and 

 very lai-ge sums of money have been spent on experiments. 

 Bourbon cotton was cultivated in Coimbatore as early as 

 1824 ; and in 1 842 Government cotton-farms were established 

 for the gro^vth of New Orleans and Indian plants, both in the 

 black and red soils, under the able superintendence of Dr. 

 Wight, the eminent botanist. In 1849 these experiments 

 were abandoned. 



* Cotton {Gossypium Indicum) is ' "The black cotton soil seems to 

 called iKirati, in Tamil ; putti, in Te- i have arisen from the decomposition 

 lu^ ; and hurpas, in Sanscrit. i of basalt and trap. When dry it is 



^ The foi-mer of these grains has : dark-coloured, and glistens from the 

 already been mentioned. The latter I presence of nearly pure gi-ain's of si- 

 is Punicum spicatitm, or spiked millet, lica. It possesses extraordinary at- 

 It is called hajree, in Guzeratee ; and traction for water, and forms witli it 

 kunghoo, in Sanscrit ; and is made iutu a most tenacious mud." — Dr. Forbes 

 cakes and porridge. Wdtson. 



