84 



Remarks on the Cultivation of Cotton. 



[July 



tion of cotton at an earlier stage of the hot season (while the ground 

 is yet moist), a prolonged harvest, and an augmented crop. 



The plan I am pursuing, in a series of experiments undertaken with 

 the view of determining the probable success of the method, is, that of 

 sowing the seed in beds, from which they are afterwards to be trans- 

 planted into the open ground with the first favourable change oC 

 weather. In my experiments I fear it will turn out that the sowing 

 was too early (end of March and beginning of April), and that the 

 plants will have attained an inconvenient size before such a change can 

 be anticipated, but I imagine from a month to six weeks old, will 

 be found a good age for removal. In transplanting, one of two methods 

 might be adopted, especially where the English plough is in use, 

 namely, either by laying the plants in deep furrows (the root should be 

 extended its full length) four feet apart, or by the holing system. The 

 holes should be two or three feet distant and six or eight inches deep, 

 equal to the full length of the root. In this way they would be planted 

 regularly, and at such distances as to permit free access for weeding, 

 hoeing and gathering, without injuring the bushes, while they would be 

 prevented choaking each other, and injuriously exhausting the soil by 

 being too thickly sown. 



In most parts of the country it is the native practice to sow grain 

 among the cotton plants, and it is said without injuring the cotton crop. 

 Should this, on careful comparative trials, be found not injurious, the 

 practice would be greatly facilitated by the transplanting system. 

 Green crops of the larger kinds of dry grain might be very convenient- 

 ly taken and dried, and stored like hay for provender ; the want 

 of which in most cotton countries is much felt, while it is known 

 that no kind of dry forage is more nutritious or more relished by cattle. 

 The cotton itself might also be expected to prove better in quality, 

 as well as more in quantity, from being the produce of vigorous and 

 well matured plants. 



These sanguine expectations are, it must be confessed, in a great 

 degree, but not altogether, speculative, for in the Vizagapatam collec. 

 torate, where liberal pruning is piactised, the return is much greater 

 than in any other district. This operation acts much in the same way, 

 by, in the first instance, checking vegetation, which is followed by the 

 production of numerous new shoots and abundance of flowers. There 

 the annual cotton plants, when about three months old, are freely prun- 

 ed, while the bushes of the triennial sort are cut down nearly to the 

 ground the second and third years, and the produce is said to amount 

 to 46 maunds or 1150 lbs. of seed cotton per acre, nearly equal to the 

 best, and exceeding the ordinary, American crops. In Ganjam the 

 same course, though not stated, seems to be pursued, since the amount 



