88 



Remarks on ihe Cultivation of Cotton. 



[July 



examining the progress of the experiments in all their stages, and 

 forming a correct estimate of the benefits likely to accrue. This they 

 could not have, if confined to the gardens and compounds of Europeans. 

 But they ought to be made simultaneously in both situations, for suc- 

 cess in the one may demonstrate satisfactorily the causes of failure, 

 should such happen, in the other, and suggest such repetitions and mo- 

 difications in the successive steps of the experiments, as may finally 

 lead to the most triumphant results, by eliciting information of the 

 greatest value, towards improving both the quantity and quality of this 

 most invaluable of vegetable productions. 



There is another point of view, in which it is necessary to consider 

 this proposal. One of the prominent defects of Indian agriculture is 

 their neglecting to change the seed from time to time. Seed of the 

 same stock is sown year after year on the same grounds, apparently in 

 absolute ignorance of the advantages to be derived from change, and 

 which is no where greater than in cotton cultivation ; hence, we never 

 hear of interchange of seed between different districts forming any part 

 of the agricultural code of the Hindoos, but is one, which it is most de- 

 sirable to establish, by proving experimentally its benefits. Spain, 

 Italy, Sicily and Malta, each supplies itself with seed from its neigh- 

 bour, and all benefit, though there is every reason to believe they 

 were all supplied from the same original stock. Here it is proba- 

 ble the transplanting method will usefully come into play, for if finer 

 and stronger plants are so reared, analogy teaches -us that their seed 

 will, even under the ordinary treatment, give a finer produce, and in 

 this way advantage may be taken of the plan, intermediately, to im- 

 prove the staple, even should it be found in other respects inapplica- 

 ble to practice from the cost exceeding the profit. 



In these remarks novelty is not aimed at: the practices recommend- 

 ed having all been successfully tried in different situations and circum- 

 stances ; my object has been, merely to endeavour to reduce them to 

 principles, under the idea that isolated facts, however valuable in them- 

 selves, never carry the same weight that they do when combined by a 

 leading theory into a system. To lay the foundation of such a system 

 is my wish, that I have yet even partially succeeded I am far from 

 thinking, our disjointed materials being inadequate to the work, but if 

 no other advantage results than that of proving the principles I have 

 assumed inapplicable to practice, one step has been made towards ulti- 

 mate success; and in the mean time, I shall continue the investigation 

 which is here commenced, in the hope of ere long being able to pro- 

 duce a more satisfactory exposition of the principles which should 

 guide us in cotton agriculture, than was possible within my present 

 contracted limits. 



