COTTON-WOOL. 



155 



Second. The best situations are not always Mr. Tucker's 

 chosen for its cultivation. 



Third. The mode of culture is essentially de- 

 fective, the natives of India being in the habit of 

 growing different articles of produce upon the 

 same land at the same time, with little regard to 

 a rotation of crops ; and owing to this injudicious 

 husbandry, and to carelessness and mismanage- 

 ment in other respects, the shrub, which under 

 proper care is elsewhere rendered biennial, trien- 

 nial, and even perennial, is in India found to be 

 an annual only.* 



The cotton is not properly cleaned and sepa- 

 rated from the seed ; the machinery employed for 

 this purpose being very insufficient, and greatly 

 inferior to that now in use in Am erica, f 



Fifth. 



* By some authorilies it is considered judicious husbandry^ 

 to root up the plants every second or third year, and to change 

 the seed periodically. The natives of India, where the plant is 

 an annual, rarely, I believe, take the precaution to procure 

 seed from other quarters, although this is known to be bene- 

 ficial, both in rural economy and in horticulture. Where the 

 cotton-plant is biennial or triennial, it is said to yield the best 

 produce in the first year, and so far the Indian cultivation may 

 be right in allowing the shrub to die off annually ; but it still 

 may be highly useful to change the seed and to practice a more 

 useful husbandry. 



f It has been urged, that the saw-gin tears and injures the 

 filament, and so perhaps it does ; but although hand-picking is 

 very essential to aid in cleaning the cotton, it cannot become a 

 substitute for machinery. In India, where labour is so cheap, 



the 



