BO 



Remarks on the Cultivation of Cotton, 



[July 



Rajahmundry.— Two kinds of country cotton are in cultivation, the 

 white and red. The white is sown in well prepared rich black soil, and 

 may be repeated annually, together with paddy seeds and coondooloo 

 (cholum ?), early in June. The field is then ploughed again, to bring 

 the seeds into regular rows, and harrowed with hurdles to level it, and 

 afterwards weeded several times. The gathering is in March, April 

 and May, the produce is about 12 maunds of seed-cotton per acre. The 

 same plants often produce a second but inferior crop, and are said not to 

 be injured by much rain. This seems to be a very unusual variety, and 

 might be successfully tried on the Malabar Coast, the cotton plant rare- 

 ly admitting of cultivation on soils capable of producing paddy, unless 

 in the instance where the latter is grown in trenches dug between beds 

 for the purpose of draining the soil intended for the other, which does 

 not seem to be the case here, at least it is not so mentioned. 



Red cotton. — This is sown in a waxy soil (sliffish clay ?), previously 

 well ploughed— completely sandy ones do not answer. This kind of 

 soil pays an assessment of only 2|, while the black pays about 6 rupees 

 the acre. The sowing commences in October in furrows 8 (3 ?) to one 

 fathom, the seeds about three inches apart. When about eighteen inches 

 high, the ground is weeded, and the operation several times repeated, till 

 April, when the harvest begins. In fair seasons the produce is about 

 20 maunds, or 5001bs. of seed-cotton per acre, which, at the rate of six- 

 teen rupees per candy, leaves a profit of ten rupees to the cultivator. 



This variety seems well suited for culture in the hottest and most 

 arid tracts of the interior, from its astonishing power of resisting heat 

 and drought. The produce being always great in proportion to the 

 continuance and intensity of the hot land winds, but does not give a 

 second crop. It is afterwards stated the rows are two feet apart. I 

 presume the latter is correct. 



Guntoor. — In this district drill husbandry is adopted in the cultiva- 

 tion of cotton. Country cotton is sown in preference in black soils, 

 but is not confined to them — the rows are about four feet apart, and the 

 plants from one and half to two. The same methods and soils were 

 tried for American and Bourbon cottons, but both failed, principally 

 it is supposed owing to the heat and want of rain that season, but per- 

 haps partly also owing to the injudicious selection of soil. Contrary 

 to what takes place in Rajahmundry, the sea breezes are said to cherish 

 and improve the plant, while it shrinks under the stroke of land winds 

 and fails to give its crop. An interchange of seeds might benefit both. 



The sowing takes place in August and September, the gather- 

 ing commences in February, and is over by the end of March. 

 It seems very desirable to repeat the trials with American and Bourbon 

 cotton, the former on the calcarious saline soils of the coast, the latter 

 on the gravelly and loamy ones of the interior. 



