156 COTTON ITSr THE MAIIEAS PEESIDENCT. [cHAP. T 



about nine months after the receipt of the Court's de- 

 spatch, Sir Henry Pottinger recorded his final decisions 

 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 

 SirHemr ^^^ ^°^ arrived for the Government to 

 Pottinger's decide finally, whether or no it wiU continue 

 m^fm!^ the Experimental Parms, and the employ- 

 Pari' Return ment of Dr. Wight and Mr. Finnie, and 

 (1867), p. 209. their subordinates. The Court of Directors 

 has distinctly intimated its concurrence with the views 

 of this Government, that the Cotton Parm at Coimba- 

 tore 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 Experimental Earms the 

 fairest, fullest, and most liberal trial ; and I am there- 

 fore satisfied, not only that they should be discontinued, 

 but that their further contiouance would prove injuri- 

 ous to the cause they were intended to promote ; inas- 

 much as it would lead the Ryots to believe that Govern- 

 ment alone possessed the means and faculty of either 

 raising the American Cotton, or of improving the cul- 

 ture and quality of the Cotton of the country. 



227 American Cotton in any part of the Madras Pre- 

 sidency liable to failure.— The Experimental Earms 

 have undeniably established the fact that American 

 Cotton can be grown in the Madras Presidency, and 

 that it will occasionally produce remimerative crops ; 

 but I am strongly impressed with the view that it will 

 in all cases be liable to failure from the unsuitablenesa 

 of climate and soil. The American Planters, indeed, 



■were desirous only of relinqnishing the Cotton Farm at Coimbatore ; 

 not of removing Dr. Wight from his position of Superintendent of 

 the Cotton Experiment. 



