184 COTTON IN THE MADEAS PEESIDENCT. [CHAP. T. 



and hot, humid and dry ; yet, whilst the weight of the 

 crops has greatly varied, the quality both of the Cot- 

 ton and the seed has remained comparatively unaltered. 

 The error has arisen from a comparison of crops raised 

 in India, with the crops raised in the most fertile disT 

 tricts of America, which lie along the banks of the 

 Mississippi, 



272 Differences between India and the Mississippi do 

 not prove that the soil of India is inimical to Ameri- 

 can Cotton, — The fertility of a soil depends on causes 

 which are liable to vary. It often differs widely in 

 adjoining fields, it is in a perpetual state of change, 

 and it is more or less modified by every crop grown. 

 In the deep alluvial deposits along the banks of the 

 Mississippi, the material on which the Cotton plant 

 feeds, is found in such abundance, that several suc- 

 cessive crops are taken off, without any alternation, and 

 without any other manure than what is supplied from 

 the ashes of the old plant which is burnt upon the 

 ground. In the soils of India this material which 

 supports the Cotton plant was perhaps never so abund- 

 antly supplied as on the Mississippi; and is now so 

 greatly exhausted from long use, that the land produces 

 about one fourth less, and rarely yields two successive 

 crops from the same field. This deficiency is not to he 

 attributed to anything inimical in the soil of India, 

 but simply to its impoverishment. This is proved by 

 the fact that heavy crops have been obtained in India 

 from land newly broken up. Generally, however, a 

 crop amounting to between 400 and 500 lbs. of seed 

 Cotton per acre, equal to about 144 lbs, of clean Cot- 

 ton, may be regarded as a heavy crop ; and this will 

 give a very handsome profit to the grower, being nearly 

 double that which is usually obtained from the Native 

 plant, even when grown in the best and most fertile 

 Black soils, 



273 Soil of Southern India better compared with that of 

 Georgia, — If we really wish to compare the crops of 

 India with those of America, we ought to take the 

 Georgian districts, where the Upland Georgian Cotton 

 is grown. There from 400 to 500 lbs. of Cotton per. 



