COTTON 179 



field. The watering of cotton should be made a penal 

 offence. 



I feel convinced that the introduction of such methods 

 as I have suggested would enable India to supply in the 

 near future, say in about five years, a cotton crop of 

 10,000,000 bales. Cotton is a crop that can be readily 

 converted into cash at any time. It is a crop that requires 

 a food or fodder crop as a rotation, and therefore does 

 not interfere with the growing of food and fodder crops. 

 Of course, the man who owns only half an acre must in 

 the first instance devote his land to the raising of food 

 crops. The cotton-seed cakes, or better, the meal of 

 these cakes, form, in all agricultural countries, an ex- 

 cellent cattle food which is not yet sufficiently used in 

 India. The meal can be conveniently packed in a small 

 compass, and can be transported expeditiously by rail to 

 famine-stricken districts when necessary. These cotton- 

 seed cakes have found great favour in England and the 

 United States, and one may justly look upon cotton quite 

 as much as a fodder-producing plant as a fibre plant, 

 seeing that the seed grains are the heaviest portion of 

 the crop. 



At present 5*9 per cent, of the gross cropped area of 

 India is under cotton, whilst 79'6 per cent, is under food 

 and fodder crops; even in famine years India exports 

 foodstuffs. It must be remembered that cotton is a crop 

 that can be warehoused for years without suffering in the 

 least, and as I have shown at the beginning of my paper, 

 there is very little possibility, owing to the ever-increasing 

 demand, that we shall see in the near future low prices 

 prevailing for cotton for any length of time. 



Even if Lancashire does not herself use very large 

 quantities of Indian cotton, yet two great advantages 

 accrue to the English cotton industry from the extension 

 of cotton cultivation in India, viz.: 



(i) Every additional bale of cotton raised in India 

 liberates a bale of American cotton, and consequently 

 lessens the demand and price for it. Seeing that this 

 year's crop in India will probably amount to 6,000,000 

 bales, the boon to the cotton industry as a whole, as a 

 result of a crop of these unprecedented dimensions, must 



