COTTON 191 



the soil, and every other duty incident to this calling, 

 require a very strong interest to induce that attention to 

 it which is absolutely necessary. This is entirely wanting 

 in the day-labourer; nor is there any circumstance in his 

 connection with his employer which gives him motives 

 either of sympathy or dependence, which might excite 

 in him sufficient attention to the work he is engaged 

 in. It is different in manufactures, where the labourer 

 employed is under the more immediate inspection of the 

 master. 



" The cultivators in small farms of the soil of Salsette 

 are stated to evince such a deplorable apathy and indiffer- 

 ence to their lot in life as to operate as a bar against 

 prevailing on them to attempt, on their own account, a 

 cultivation with which they are unacquainted. They have 

 barely the means of providing for their families and 

 paying their rents; they are incapable of enjoying any 

 satisfaction which arises from new and successful 

 pursuits; and it would be difficult to persuade them to 

 hazard even the miserable provision they are now certain 

 of, in the hope of obtaining a better one by any new or 

 speculative undertaking. 33 



All the experiments, however, did not prove to be 

 absolute failures, and cotton of excellent quality was 

 produced in several places. The Upland Georgian and 

 New Orleans became so thoroughly established in the 

 Southern Mahratta country of Bom-bay that they are 

 now looked upon as indigenous; the Bourbon is seen as 

 a garden plant over the whole of India, and as a field 

 plant in some parts of Madras. 



To conclude this brief account of the principles of 

 improvement followed through many years under the old 

 order of things, the sum of practical knowledge gained 

 was that India is capable in many parts of producing 

 cotton good enough to compete with the product of 

 America, and that the enormous proportion of the in- 

 digenous article, on account of many well-defined defects, 

 can never come into general use, and some of these 

 defects have been due to the indifference of the cultivators 

 to the state of the cotton produced by them, the want of 

 encouragement to them from the trade to bestow more 

 '3 



