COTTON 495 



In India, again, wages are very low, and the chief 

 difficulty is to secure the adoption of methods of cultiva- 

 tion and varieties of cotton which would increase the 

 yield above the present beggarly average of about 100 Ib. 

 of cotton (lint) per acre. In China and Japan the con- 

 ditions are probably similar to those of India. In Asiatic 

 Russia, where cotton is grown entirely under irrigation, 

 the limiting' factor is again the water supply as in Egypt, 

 though in certain districts where the old native type of 

 cotton is largely or entirely grown we find a parallel to 

 the Indian conditions. In Bokhara, a Russian tributary 

 State, a curious state of affairs exists, under which the 

 method of collecting the land revenue controls the situa- 

 tion. The land tax is assessed on the value of the crop, 

 which cannot be removed from the field until it has been 

 inspected and valued by the revenue officer. To avoid 

 the damage which would result from the inevitable delay, 

 cultivation is confined to the native type of cotton, the 

 boll of which does not open when ripe, but has to be 

 plucked bodily and opened afterwards by artificial means. 



In South America, Brazil and Peru are fairly important 

 cotton-produciing countries. Regarding the former, the- 

 writer has little definite information. It seems to offer 

 great possibilities for cotton growing, but the cost of 

 living is very high and labour very poorly paid, resulting 

 in low efficiency and high mortality. The chief hindrance 

 to the extension of the crop seems to be lack of 

 enterprise and the entire absence of modern methods of 

 cultivation. 



In Peru, cotton is grown entirely under irrigation and 

 the limiting factor is the lack of capital for the develop- 

 ment of irrigation facilities. Labour is comparatively 

 costly, wages being stated in a report, dated 1911, as 

 2s. 6d. per day. 



Coming now to the United States Cotton Belt, which 

 still supplies about two-thirds of the world's cotton crop, 

 we find a set of conditions entirely different from those in 

 any other country in the world. The Civil War, so far as 

 it really turned on the question of slavery, was fought on 

 the issue that cotton is essentially a " cheap-labour crop/' 

 and that its cultivation without the supply of cheap labour 

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