COTTON 193 



of which India supplied 1,282,172 bales the record year 

 being 1866, when India furnished 1,847,759 bales. Thirty 

 years later (1899) the United Kingdom took 4,065,617 

 bales, of which India furnished only 77,297 bales, and 

 in 1903 the Indian portion slightly improved, the United 

 Kingdom having taken 203,550 bales of Indian cotton. 

 The immediate response made by India during the 

 cotton famine shows her capabilities, but, as in the 

 United States, so in India, the demands of her own mills 

 have now become the chief controlling factor in the 

 amount available for export. The outcry in Europe was 

 against the adulteration not the low-grade staple. The 

 position of Indian cotton in the European markets was 

 as a mixing fibre, or as a fibre to be used in uphol- 

 stery. The success of Western intelligent agriculture 

 over Eastern ignorance and greed was rapidly assured, 

 and in time the Indian cotton fell so low that it was 

 practically debarred from being imported into Liverpool. 

 But the century closed with India, instead of exporting 

 cotton goods, having become the largest single market 

 for English manufactured cottons, its demands having 

 been just under 20,000,000. 



II. THE POSITION OF INDIAN COTTON FROM 1890 

 ONWARDS. 



Immediately on the establishment of the present Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture in India it was realized that before 

 further trials could be made in the improvement of the 

 cotton crop, a very great deal of preliminary work had to 

 be done. The indigenous cottons were first subjected to 

 botanical classification, and as the work was commenced 

 in the Bombay Presidency a start was naturally made with 

 its cottons, which eventually proved to be more diverse 

 than those found in the other large cotton tracts of India. 

 When a fairly accurate knowledge of these cottons had 

 been obtained a large number of varieties, found through- 

 out the whole country, were collected by Mr. Mollison, 

 then Inspector-General of Agriculture. These were 

 grown in contiguous plots for three years, and after this 

 period of study and observation an attempted classifica- 



