IQ2 COTTON 



care in cultivation and marketing, and the systematic 

 adulteration which is practised unchecked by the trade. 



A scheme was formulated in England to raise a sum 

 of 20,000,000 to be expended in India during five years 

 in measures calculated to forward India as a cotton- 

 producing country. The outbreak of the Mutiny put an 

 end, however, to these negotiations. 



Commenting on the effect of the American Civil War 

 and the great Cotton Famine of 1862-66, Dr. Charles W. 

 Dabney (Butt. No. 33, 1896, U.S. Dept. Agric., "The 

 Cotton Plant," p. 14) very truly observes: "Probably 

 no equally great industry was ever more completely 

 paralysed or had its future placed in greater jeopardy 

 than cotton growing in the United States during the war 

 of 1861-65. So great was the decrease in production 

 which followed the effectual closing of the ports that only 

 one bale of cotton was grown in 1864-65 for every fifteen 

 bales raised in 1861-62. The chief menace to the future 

 of cotton production lay in the efforts that were put forth 

 by other cotton-growing countries at this time to produce 

 those particular varieties which had for so long given the 

 United States the monopoly of the European markets; 

 and nothing could more completely demonstrate the 

 remarkable adaptation of our Southern States to the 

 growing of varieties which the experience of generations 

 has proved to be the best for manufacturing purposes 

 than the fact that it took them only thirteen years from 

 the end of the war to regain the primary position which 

 they held at its commencement." 



In 1863 a Cotton Commissioner was appointed for 

 Bombay, and the year following for Berar and the 

 Central Provinces. Cotton farms were established under 

 these Commissioners. The Bombay Cotton Frauds 

 Act IX of 1863 became law, but it is generally believed 

 it did more harm than good, and it was shortly after 

 repealed. For the ten years ending 1859 the United 

 Kingdom imported an average of 2,318,575 bales of 

 cotton (each 400 lb.), and of that amount India supplied 

 405,291 bales. But in the ten years ending 1869, which 

 included the troublous times of the American War, the 

 United Kingdom imported an average of 2,736,661 bales, 



