COTTON-WOOL. 



261 



from leaf and dirt, and the other of dun^^aree for Letter from 



Bombay, 



that which was not perfectly clean. The cotton 5 Oct. isss. 

 so gathered, instead of heing left all night in the 

 field, as was the practice, to be taken in large bags 

 to the villages, and housed at the close of each 

 day, the seed being afterwards separated from the 

 fibre by foot-rollers worked by women, and if 

 necessary, again hand-picked before the final 

 packing. 



17. This plan of gathering the cotton is similar 

 to that which, it is believed, obtains in America, 

 where the cotton is separated into two classes of 

 different qualities at the time of gathering. The 

 six bales of cotton which were forwarded to your 

 Honourable Court in 1831, and of which the Lon- 

 don merchants appear to have had a favourable 

 opinion, as stated in the twenty-second paragraph 

 of your Commercial letter dated 6th March 1832, 

 were prepared according to this plan, as was also 

 a small quantity of Dharwar cotton consigned last 

 year to Canton, which was highly approved of by 

 the Chinese merchants. The Select Committee 

 stated, that a small consignment yearly of such 

 cotton would not fail to prove of easy sale and 

 ready consumption in China. 



18. But notwithstanding the advantage of this 

 plan to the cultivators, who had the option al- 

 lowed them of paying their revenue in cotton, or 

 of receiving a fair remunerating price (about 

 twenty per cent, above the market price) for the 



quantity 



