174 COTTON IN THE MADRAS PRESIDENCY. [1849. 



CHAP, the stimulus would be exhausted, and every trace of it 

 _ ' _ would disappear. He added that Government did all that 

 could be done to obtain the desired object, when it en- 

 couraged the people to exert themselves, and placed amongst 

 them qualified persons to advise and instruct them in cul- 

 tivating, cleaning, and preparing their Cotton. Shortly 

 after penning this Minute, the Court's dispatch of the 4th 

 July must have arrived at Madras; but some delay arose 

 from the necessity of considering what arrangement should 

 be made on the cessation of Dr. Wight's functions as Su- 

 perintendent of the Cotton Farms.* At last on the 4th 

 May 1849, about nine months after the receipt of the 

 Court's dispatch, Sir Henry Pottinger recorded his final de- 

 cisions in a Minute, the points of which may be exhibited 

 in the following form. 



226 The Experimental Farms have been fully tried, and 



their continuance would be injurious. The time has 



sir Henry n0 w arrived for the Government to decide finally, whether 



J'ottinger's 



or no *t W ^ continue the Experimental Farms, and the em- 



M 



' (1857) ployment of Dr. Wight and Mr. Finnie, and their subordi- 



tn 



p * m nates. The Court of Directors has distinctly intimated its 

 concurrence with the views of this Government, that the 

 Cotton Farm at Coimbatore should be abandoned; and we 

 might have acted upon that intimation at once, only I have 

 been anxious to look narrowly into the whole question once 

 again, in order to propose the outline of an arrangement for 

 the future. I may here state, that from a careful perusal of 

 the whole of the papers, I am perfectly convinced that both 

 the East India Company and the Madras Government, have 

 done all that was either requisite or called for, to give to these 



* It will be presently seen that the Madras Government partly misunder- 

 stood the terms of the Court's dispatch. The Directors \vere desirous only 

 of relinquishing the Cotton Farm at Coimbatore; not of removing Dr. 

 Wight from his position of Superintendent of the Cotton Experiment. 



