1842] Nurma or Chanderi Cotton. 1193 



Q. \2th. Enquire if it is subject to any diseases, or insects, which 

 seriously affect the returns from it. 



A. I can learn of no disease or insect to which the Mhahlie cot- 

 ton is peculiarly liable. It is less affected by frost. 



Q. 13th. The amount of return in clean merchantable cotton per 

 beegah of a known number of square yards is of importance, and the 

 average price of the best sort. 



A. The produce of the Mhahlie is greater than that of the Goondai- 

 lah, or common cotton of Nimar. 



The ordinary crop of the latter is four maunds (of eighty rupees) 

 per beegah of 22,500 square feet uncleaned, whereas the same area 

 will return from five to six maunds of Mhahlie. 



Moreover, the seed of the Mhahlie being smaller and the pod larger, 

 (of the latter fact I am not so certain,) five chittacks of clean cotton are 

 yielded by a seer of pod, whereas only four chittacks are obtainable 

 from the common cotton. When the Mhahlie is irrigated, it will yield 

 from seven to eight maunds of pod per beegah. Hence the produce 

 per beegah of 22,500 square yards in merchantable cotton, is sixty 

 eight seers and twelve chittacks for un watered, and ninety- three seers 

 and twelve chittacks for irrigated land; the seer being of eighty rupees, 

 Company's. This advantage is reduced by the difficulty of disposing 

 of the Mhahlie cotton. 



The growth of the Mhahlie was confined to two pergunnahs of 

 Nimar, Dhurgaon and Kussode, and to a few villages of those pergun- 

 nahs I should add to a single village of Muhaiswah. Those pergun- 

 nahs seem to have been selected from their proximity to Chundairee, 

 for the market of which alone it was ever reared. Although at 

 Muhaiswah and Kurgaon of Nimar, there are several celebrated manu- 

 factories of mamoodies, dhooties, khun, phatub, sahries and chadurs, 

 some having silken and others golden borders, the Mhahlie has never 

 been employed at either of those places. The extensive importation 

 of fine cotton cloths from England seems to have annihilated the 

 Chundairee manufacture, so that there is no longer any demand for the 

 Mhahlie, which is selling at present cleaned at five seers the rupee in 

 Nimar, the price of the common kind. The facts above detailed may 

 illustrate the difficulty of introducing amongst the ryuts of India, any 

 improvements that may seem to us for their advantage. Having no 



