1849.] VIEWS OF SIE HENRY POTTINGEB. 157 



have gone farther, and have pronounced that the ex- 

 periment in this Presidency is altogether hopeless ; 

 and not one of them has ever supported the sanguine 

 hopes and predictions of Dr. "Wight or Mr. Wroughton. 

 However, the period for predictions and prospects has 

 passed away ; and the Farms themselves have merged 

 into a mere mercantile speculation. 



Causes of the failure of American Cotton : climate 228 

 and soil. — It would be useless, and indeed I am not 

 qualified, to discuss at length the causes of the failure. 

 I believe that the failure is to be ascribed to the natural 

 defects of climate and soil, and especially to the former. 

 I appeal to all persons, who have practically studied 

 the subject for any length of time in India, to say 

 whether such defects are not often unaccountably in- 

 surmountable ; and whether, even when they are over- 

 come, the success is not to be attributed to some secret 

 working of nature which it is impossible to fathom. I 

 have never attempted the cultivation of Cotton, but I 

 have been a very successful practical gardener in vari- 

 ous parts of India ; and I have constantly found it 

 impossible to bring to perfection in one place, the plants 

 which flourished most luxuriantly in another. Who, 

 for instance, can explain why the delicious Mangostein 

 is confined to a small circle in the Straits of Malacca ? 

 Why the Maize, which in every part of India requires 

 unceasing irrigation, will yet grow as a dry crop on the 

 hills in the vicinity of Nankin ? Why the Pumplenoses 

 (West Indian Shaddock) which grew in my garden at 

 Bhooj, in the rich and proverbially hot climate of 

 Kutch, were far superior, both in size and flavour, to 

 any that I have ever seen either at Bombay or on the 

 coast of Malabar ? 



Dr. Wight ascribes the failure in Coimbatore to 229 

 the want of humidity, but humidity does not mean 

 rain. — I see that Dr. Wight attributes the failure of 

 the American Cotton in Coimbatore to the want of 

 humidity ; and I understand him to signify that the 

 humidity of a climate depends upon the quantity of 

 rain that falls. To this definition I beg to differ. The 

 climate of the lower parts of Scinde is for some months 



