Observations on the f 



stant failure of attempts to cultivate Bourbon and American cottons, on 

 what is called the black cotton soil ; its extreme fertility causing them 

 to run to wood and leaves, and produce no flowers. So different is 

 the indigenous Indian cotton, in this respect, that on the red soils it 

 gives both inferior crops, and cotton of inferior quality, and attains 

 its greatest perfection on the black. Pruning the extremities of 

 the young branches, is extensively practised in some countries, 

 where the plant has been long and very successfully cultivated. 

 Some practical writers however object to this practice, they say, 

 as the result of experience, but, as the experiments made to prove 

 this position, are not detailed with sufficient exactitude, to 

 enable me to determine their value, by an examination of the cir- 

 cumstances that might have an unfavourable effect on the result, and 

 as they are at variance with the principles of vegetable physiology, 

 I feel disposed to doubt their accuracy,, As this is a practical question 

 of great importance, and one which can only be set at rest by a 

 series of carefully conducted experiments, I must, for the present, leave 

 it in the hands of those who enjoy opportunities of examining it in that 

 manner, and shall feel much indebted to any one who can give me 

 practical information, on this, or on any other, point connected with the 

 cultivation of cotton. 



I have been induced to enter, thus largely, on the consideration of 

 subjects connected with the cotton trade, for the sake of showing the ad- 

 vantages India is already reaping from her, as'yet comparatively limited* 

 engagement in this branch of commerce, and of calling attention to the 

 much greater ones she may expect to flow from it, as the rewards 

 of industry and attention to increase the quantity, and improve the 

 staple, of the article which forms its basis, in the hope of inducing 

 practical men to lay the results of their experience before the pub- 

 lic, for the guidance of their less informed neighbours. As there 

 are but few Europeans engaged in this culture, I more especially 

 address myself to intelligent and well informed natives, many of whom 

 are readers of this Journal, and, among whom, I feel assured there are 

 many, both able and willing, to furnish much really useful information, 

 acquired during a series of years devoted to agricultural pursuits, but 

 who are kept back, either by supposing that they have nothing new to 

 communicate, or from a distrust in their qualifications to reduce, to ft 

 suitable form for publication, the results of theire xperience. To all such, 

 the writer of these memoranda offers his assistance, and, in the hope of 

 more rapidly extending our knowledge of cotton culture, as well as for- 

 warding the wishes of government in the improvement of our commerce, 

 will, with pleasure, charge himself with the task of correcting for publi- 

 cation, all really practical communications that may be addressed to 

 him. 



