184546.] ME. FINNIE'S FOUR YEARS IN TINNEVELLY. 101 



account, as Agent to any merchant who might consider it CHAP, 

 expedient to engage his services. This however will be no- _ 

 ticed further on. Meantime it will be sufficient to say that 

 Mr. Finnie secured the thresher already alluded to. He also 

 ordered an American hand-gin made by Mr. Idler of Phila- 

 delphia, on the ground that the gins made in America had 

 been found to work with less labour, and to turn out nearly 

 double the quantity of Cotton, than those made in England. 

 Both purchases were supported by Dr. Wight, and sanc- 

 tioned by the Madras Government. Nothing of course was Mr> Fin . 

 done during the first season, as Mr. Finnie could not ob- sist^Oot! 

 tain Cotton except of the poorest quality, and moreover had Return ar 

 no house in which to set up his gins. 339. 



Queries submitted to Mr. Finnie by the Marquis 142 

 of Tweeddale. Before entering upon the second year of 

 Mr. Finnie's operations in Tinnevelly, it may be as well to 

 bring forward the results of his experience in reference to the 

 cultivation of Cotton both in America and India. Dr. Wight's Para 47 * 



Notes on American Agriculture, which he drew up at the Mi ute by 



the Mar- 

 request of Lord Elphinstone, have already been exhibited in ^/ 



the second Chapter. In the same way Mr. Finnie replied }^ p 

 at considerable length to certain queries propounded by the *857) U 

 Marquis of Tweeddale ; and the results are accordingly con- 

 densed and arranged in a similar form. 



MR. FINNIE'S " NOTES ON COTTON CULTIVATION IN 

 AMERICA AND INDIA." 



Early cultivation of Cotton in America: compar- 143 

 ed with the present cultivation in India. The earliest Mr. Fin- 

 Cotton cultivated in North America is supposed to have 8 * 8 .* 



the queries 



been brought from the Grecian Archipelago. It was first j^ e Ma jj' f 

 tried in Virginia, but the season between the last frost 



