76 



GOSSYPIUM HERBACEUM. 



The Districts in which its cultivation reaches its maximum are Aligarh, Agra and 

 Banda, where it amounts to over ]0 per cent, on the cultivated area. The produce 

 attains its finest quality on the black soil of Bundelkhand, the produce of which sells 

 in the Cawnpore market at from Ee. 1 to Es. 2 a maund higher than local produce. 



Seasons. Cotton is a kharif crop, being the one first sown after the commencement of the 



rains, and yielding its produce from October to January. This is with the ordinary 

 variety, tiarma and rad^a cotton not bearing a crop till the April and May following 

 their sowing, and thus occupying the ground for at least eleven months. Cotton fills 

 no place in any special rotation of crops, although it is reported generally to succeed 

 sugar-cane in Meerut, and to intervene between two cereal crops in Bareilly, the deduc- 

 tion being merely that it is grown on good land which had at all events been manured 

 in the preceding year. It is olT the ground too late to admit of its being followed by a 

 rabi crop in the same year, but an ingenious method of gaining a second crop off cotton 

 fields is to sow the oilseed dudn {Eruca sativd) broad-cast amidst the crop just before it is 

 finally weeded. The seeds are buried in the operation of weeding, and the dudn plants do 

 not become tall enough to interfere with the cotton until the latter has finished bearing. 



Mixtures. Cotton is Comparatively rarely grown alone, being, as a rule, associated with four or 



five subordinate crops, amongst which arhar is the chief. The arhar is generally sown 

 in parallel lines, not broad-casted, and it is said that the cotton plants find in its shelter 

 some protection from cold winds and frost. The oilseed til, or gingelly, occupies first 

 place amongst the remaining subordinate crops, which comprise the pulses urd or mung 

 sown broad-cast, and an edging of castor and of the fibre plant known as patsan 

 (^Hibiscus cannahinus). 



Soils and manuring. Cotton land may be either the very best or the very worst in a village. As a rule 



cotton is grown on good land, a loam being preferred, and is either manured itself or 

 reaps some benefit from a manuring applied to the crop which preceded it. District 

 returns show that about 23 per cent, of the cotton crop is grown on land manured spe- 

 cially for it, 39 per cent, on land manured in the previous year or two years, and 38 per 

 cent, on land altogether unmanured. It will be seen that a very large proportion is 

 grown with manure, but on the other hand it is a common crop on poor soils, such as 

 the raviny calcareous tracts in the neighbourhood of great rivers, which it is said to 

 actually improve by the manure of the leaves which fall from it. When sown on high 

 class soils it is generally grown alone, while on poor ground it is almost invariably mixed 

 with a large proportion of pulses and oilseeds. Hardly any of the Bundelkhand cotton, 

 which is by far the best in the Provinces, receives manure, nor does the black soil on 

 which it is generally grown appear to require it. 



Tillage and sowing. The land is ploughed from four to six times on the first fall of rain, and the seed is 



sown broad-cast at the rate of 4 to 6 seers per acre and ploughed in. The seed is 

 generally rubbed with cowdung before sowing, which prevents it clinging together in 

 masses as it would otherwise do, and is also said to stimulate its growth. Irrigation is 

 only applied to one field in seven, and this much only in Canal Districts, where a 

 watering will not cost more than from one to two rupees. 



Narma cotton requires but little water, although it has the whole of the cold and 



