1840.] 



Cultivaiion of Cotton in India. 



181 



ing the little mounds of plants (containing two, or at most three each), 

 at regular squares, in this mode, is of much advantage throughout. 

 The facility for ploughing and hoeing is greater in this than in the 

 common methods. The free admission of sun, the freest circulation 

 of air and light winds, are of the greatest benefit to a perfect culture. 

 This may be mentioned, because I know that too close a cultivation 

 is a common mistake. By the last mode, the plantation may become 

 a close low thicket so much infested by rats and snakes, as almost to 

 be a work of danger to enter it. If the seed can luckily be got into the 

 ground in September, the young plant may be sufficiently strong to resist 

 the pernicious and continued wet of a heavy monsoon. Little is gained 

 by sowing seed in October, November, and December, unless the land 

 is very high, of a dry description, and clean from weeds, which, at 

 this period, generally smother all other vegetation near them. The 

 clear intervals of these months answer well of course for transplanting, 

 and the first week of January, in general, very well also, both for sow- 

 ing and transplanting. It is well, however, to have the plants well es- 

 tablished in the soil some days before the heavy rains, and with this 

 object, I have lately succeeded wherever it was desirable, in transplant- 

 ing the young plants on the very first rain, and this year early in Octo- 

 ber. They bear it extremely well in cloudy and light rainy days, and 

 it will succeed without doubt, immediately, if they have a small portion 

 of earth attached to them. Whenever this naode is proposed, a seed 

 bed must be prepared and sown in J uly, in soil tolerably good, and 

 watered from some well near the place that is to receive the plants in 

 October. 



Of late I have given the plantations under my own immediate eye 

 their principal pruning, as soon as ever the heavy rains have passed 

 away, say from the I5th to the 31st December, or just at the time be- 

 fore the sap becomes active. In the fine days of January, I plough 

 the plantation thoroughly three or four times over. In less than two 

 months the whole is again in the finest foliage and in full blossom, and 

 continues in full bearing all the months of March, April, and May. 

 Just at this time, at the crisis of extreme heats, a short suspension may 

 be observed to the production of fruit-buds. 1 should mention that, 

 at the pruning above adverted to, I clear the plants entirely of all the 

 very young wood, or all with soft green bark, cutting the shrub down 

 generally to two feet high and two feet wide, but leaving all that can 

 be properly left of the firm wood with the strung white and brown bark. 

 In June again there will generally be a good portion of pods still re- 

 maining on the plant, and the rain here is at that season very light j and 



