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'Cultivation of Cotton in India. 



[Jan. 



for grain, or some produce which was more certain of a ready market. 

 The subject was subsequently taken up by a gentleman who h;id tbe 

 charge of my private concerns in India during my absence in England, 

 and the provision of Bourbon cotton is, I believe, still continued by him, 

 although I have no means at present of saying to what extent. 



Paper hy G. A. Hughes, Esq., enclosed in the preceding. 



The plant is of so hardy a description that it may be safely believed 

 it will grow well in any situation, yet to have it sufficiently productive, 

 much attention must be given to soil as well as to culture. With this 

 view, all very rich, heavy, retentive stiff soils, should never be selected; 

 for although they produce luxuriant plants, yet they have much and 

 more tendency to produce redundancy of wood and leaf than of produce, 

 and almost always to the generating of insects. The red and brown 

 loams, or, indeed, any silicious or calcareous soil, fertile in a moderate 

 degree, are, upon the whole, in my idea, the most suitable and the most 

 fruitful. What is commonly known to us under the denomination of 

 cotton soil, the deep black vegetable loam, is, I think, to be entirely 

 avoided. The Bourbon species has almost in all respects, a character 

 different from the indigenous, and as far as my observation goes, de- 

 mands a mode of treatment similar to that of America. In the point 

 of climate, the vicinity of the sea, or situations to which the influence 

 of the sea air extends, are, on every account, I believe, to be preferred. 

 The vicinity of th« Ghauts, or any situation near high mountains, on our 

 Peninsula, should not possibly be chosen, because the climate near 

 them is certainly likely to be less uniform in the hot months than this 

 shrub requires ; a dry soil and a dry atmosphere from March to May, 

 and from July to September, seem almost essential to the good quality 

 of the wool as well as to its productiveness. 



Before touching upon the operation of pruning, which I practice 

 twice in the year, and not once only, it might be as well to say some- 

 thing on the culture. I am now entirely convinced the plant will 

 last a great number of years, and will not at all fall off if well and pro- 

 perly managed. The objection to this in other countries is said to be 

 that it produces swarms of insects, but this, I suspect, is the defect of 

 treatment and of soil, rather than the age of the plant, since the 

 youngest plantations are equally liable to this evil. Under the per- 

 suasion that it may be preserved with advantage many years, a sys- 

 tematic and careful culture from the very first must be the best. The 

 seeds should be sown, or the young plants be set in straight rows, 

 eight feet apart, and the rows also regularly eight feet asunder, Plac- 



