418 



COTTON- WOOI^ 



Appendix, extend. I have often regretted not having the means or 

 opportunity to ascertain how far the lands in that great 

 delta of the Sunderbund, and particularly the provinces 

 adjacent, which after the secession of their waters during 

 the eastern monsoon are so strongly impregnated with 

 salt, would not produce cottons of an equally fine texture 

 with those above-mentioned, and which in England always 

 bear so high a price. The presumption is, the attempt 

 would be successful, provided the black seed was procured 

 from Demerara or Georgia. 



The cottons grown in the Ceded Districts are a variety 

 of the green seed, to which they adhere with great strength, 

 and are in consequence difficult to clean. The capsule 

 and seed are both small, and the fibres of the cotton have 

 the appearance of having interlocked in their growth- 

 In confirmation of this, the American saw-gin sent out by 

 the Company to Mardas, which was imported from 

 Charlestown, and no doubt constructed there by a regular 

 gin-maker, and competent to cleaning the bowed Georgias, 

 would not, when the attempt was made to clean with it 

 the district cottons, discharge the seeds, but became im- 

 mediately choked. In fact, it was observed, those I had 

 built on the same principle succeeded much better. But 

 it was not from the introduction of any new machinery, 

 but rather the improvement of that already in use, more 

 particularly by introducing greater precautionary means 

 in the first stages of its manupilation, the gathering in 

 from the field (or as the Americans call it, the picking), 

 that I grounded my hopes of any improvement of the 

 district cottons; for their principal deterioration is less 

 from the quantity of seed in them, than their being' 

 specked or fouled with broken leaf. Any improvement 

 of the cottons at present cultivated, after the experiments 

 that have been made, it is evident must be by resorting to 



these 



