1192 Nurmaor Chanderi Cotton. [No. 132. 



Q. 3d, What manure, if any, is used to it ? 



A. The soil is prepared for Mhahlie cotton, precisely as for other cot- 

 ton. The manure is dung and black earth from the villages. 



Q. 4th. When sown ? How sown ? When harvested ? How cleaned ? 



A. It is sown like other cotton at the end of June, but harvested about 

 forty days later than the common kind, i. e. about the end of March. 

 It has never been cleaned in Nimar, but was exported to Chundairee 

 in the pod. The meaning of which I presume was to enable the work- 

 men there to sort it, previous to cleaning, for the several qualities of 

 manufacture in contemplation. 



Q, 5th. What price does the best sort command ? Whither is it 

 exported, if at all ? 



A. The Mhahlie cotton so long as it had any peculiar value in 

 Nimar or rather at Chundairee, where alone there has ever been a de- 

 mand for it, sold in Nimar at fifty per cent, higher than the common 

 cotton, and at Chundairee it sold at one and a half seer for the rupee, 

 when the ordinary kind was selling at five seers ; at present it sells for 

 the same price as the common cotton, which, however, being white and 

 having a coarser, perhaps stronger, filament, is preferred in the Nimar 

 market; so that it appears to be cultivated at present merely from the 

 accident of its seed being in possession of the ryuts, who formerly culti- 

 vated it with profit. 



Q. 6th. Is it an annual cotton, or does it last more than one year ? 



A. It is annual. The Nurmah is not. 



Q. 10th. Enquiry should be made, if it at the time of ripening any pe- 

 culiar manure is added, as with some of the choice sorts of tobacco. If 

 the plants are topped, the shoots pinched, or beaten with sticks, 

 or allowed to be eaten down by animals. All these processes are used 

 in various parts of the world (America, the French and Spanish Colo- 

 nies, Persia, &c.) and no doubt influence both the productiveness and 

 the quality of the cotton to a great extent. Nothing relative to the na- 

 tive methods of culture, irrigation, &c. should be overlooked. 



A. No peculiar manure is added at the time of ripening. The 

 plants are never topped; a process I have never known applied to 

 cotton crops in India. It is sown in both rubbee and khureef soils ; in the 

 latter, it is alternate with jowaree. The difference in produce afforded 

 by these two soils, viz. the irrigated and unirrigated, is very great. 



