264 COTTON CORDAGE AND CANVAS. 
Corton Corpace anp Canvas (Gossypium indicum, &c. ; 
Malvaceae). 
Though Cotton is a substance which is cellular in structure, 
and not fibrous, also sold by the pound, and not by the ewt. 
or ton, as the articles we have been treating of, yet it cannot 
be entirely omitted from a work on the Cordage and Clothing 
plants of India. But the Author may be excused from 
dilating on the subject, as he has so recently treated of it fully 
in his work on the ‘Culture and Commerce of Cotton in 
India.’! Cotton, though used chiefly for clothing, is, in India, 
also employed to a considerable extent for cordage, as, for 
instance, for tent-ropes, of which so many are required for the 
use of the army, and made entirely of Cotton, as are the tents 
1 The Author has in the above work treated, first, of the Commercial causes 
which influence the irregular imports of Indian Cotton: secondly, of the Cultivation 
of Cotton, including the varieties of Commercial Cotton, and the species of Gossy- 
pium ; Chemical Analyses of Cotton, its seed, and of Cotton soils ; Climate of Cotton 
districts; and the Principles and Practice of Cotton Culture: thirdly, Experimental 
Culture of Cotton in India, in which all the different districts have been successively 
noticed. Some additional information has been published respecting Malwa, &c., 
in vol. vii of the ‘Journ. of the Agri-Hortic. Soc. of Calcutta.’ 
There is only one point to which the Author wishes to refer, and that because it 
has been the subject of discussion, and because he ventured to doubt (pp. 449 to 454) 
the correctness of Mr. Davies’s calcnlation of the cost of a candy of Cotton (20 begahs 
being required to produce it, or 784 lb.) in the district of Broach, which he made to 
be above seventy-five rupees. Mr. Landon, established as a cotton-merchant in Broach, 
and cleaning native Cotton by his saw gins moved by steam power; and who has 
lately taken out machinery for spinning Cotton, has stated by letter, and since, 
verbally to the Author, the following facts: 
“ About fifty patells and ryots who are now at my elbow with kuppas to sell, 
have this moment unanimously stated that the average cost of cultivating a bhar of 
kuppas in this district, including ren¢ and all charges, is Rs.15. The average 
quantity of kuppas which yields a candy of Cotton is 2} bhars (this season it is 
28, bhars). Therefore, the cost of a candy of Cotton does not exceed, on an average, 
Rs. 15 x 2=Rs. 37}! While the average price which I have paid the ryots, for a candy 
of Cotton in the seed, during the last six years, is Rs. 883! or Rs. 35! per bhar. 
This I am prepared to show from my books, and to make oath of it if necessary. 
Again, I recently asked a ryot how many begahs of Cotton he cultivated: he replied 
forty; and that they produced ten bhars of kuppas. At the rate of Rs.15 per bhar, 
the total cost to him of these ten bhars, including rent and all charges, was Rs. 150. 
The price which J paid him for it was Rs. 360! Others have repeatedly made 
similar statements to me, as to the produce and cost of production, in respect to 
greater and less quautities of land.” 
