21 
VII.—COTTON IN INDIA. 
[K. B., 1894, pp. 318-321.] 
EXTRACT from MEMORANDUM by Dr. GEORGE WATT, ©. L E. 
Little more than a century ago it was felt in England that the time 
might arrive when India would have to ve ae arded, from political 
reasons, as the chief source of supply for on. A Polish botanist 
[Dr. Anthony Pantaleon piel employed nlp a rer yon for Kew in the 
last century ], was sent out by the then British Government to staat the 
indigenous cotton plants of India. His report, though not published 
until many years after his death, is full of interest. It shows that the 
rops grown in Western India a century ago were very different from 
this century the Honourable the East India Company entertained the 
somewhat unfortunate opinion that wE true way to enable India to par- 
ticipate in the greatly pe bone British traffic in raw cotton would be 
to acclimatise the most highly pri Beaty Sein of America. Large sums of 
money were accordingly spent in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay, that 
might (as we now learn) have been used to better advantage in an effort 
to improve and develop the indigenous crops. Year by year America 
steadily improved the quality and increased the length of her staple, and 
the demand for Indian cotton accordingly declined. Ultimately, how- 
ever, India succeeded in producing New Orleans cotton at Dharwar—a 
frauds perpetrated, but this, while being wholly ineffectual in its main 
object, Mele frequently poe the wrong persons, and accordingly did 
great harm to the industry. It was in consequence repealed, and the 
Indian aktión tate was thus left to take care of itself. The effort to 
participate in the British traffic had practically to be abandoned, and not 
because India had been proved incapable of producing a staple of the 
kind required. But this is not all. The ri pe of India for its 
once famous indigenous cottons had at the me been completely 
destroyed, and its American crop having fallen fee disfavour, rapidly 
degenerated in quality, until at the present day it might almost be 
described as inferior to many of the indigenous cottons. Unskilled and 
impecuni e 
enlightened agriculture of America—unskilled because ignorant of the 
principles by which they might have developed the produce to meet 
the best market, instead of being content to allow it to drift into an 
inferior position. As matters stand, they may now be said to glory in 
ar Sore are able to dispose of a worthless staple at remunerative 
Tia improvement towards a higher and better-paid standard is 
ossible may be accepted as fully demonstrated by past experience and 
by the fact of superior races of cotton being found where attention is 
given to the crop, and still more so by the further fact that within the 
regions of superior production the cultivators are fully aware that 
degeneration occurs with neglect and with the prolonged continuance of 
cultivation of any. particular form on the same soil. Selection bss 
seed and the cultivation of specially selected plants for the ae 
