1837.] 



Remarks on the Cultivation of Cotton. 



95 



May, 12,963 lbs. of cotton, including' seed, making an average per 

 beegah (of 120* square feet), 144 lbs., which cotton after having 

 been separated from the seed, gave 40§ lbs. of clean cotton, and 1031 

 lbs. of seed." 



" The only tolerable crop in point of quantity (for the quality of the 

 Upland Georgia cotton has been already declared excellent) has there- 

 fore been derived from the stumps of plants of the previous year, 

 destroyed by the storm, and this simple fact involves a question of 

 great importance, viz. whether this description of cotton might not be 

 more successfully cultivated as a perennial plant, under a course of 

 treatment similar to that which Mr. Bruce describes as followed in 

 Persia ; where, after the goats and sheep have been allowed to browse 

 freely upon the plants ( after crop), the peasantry are permitted to com- 

 plete the work of spoliation by breaking off the remaining branches 

 to the root." 



a The hail storm which occurred, and did so much damage to the 

 plant in 1831-32, was the means of providing us with a tolerable crop in 

 1832-33, and really seems to point at the Persian method, as an example 

 for others to follow in India." 



The Committee strongly recommend the introduction of the Upland 

 Georgia on an extensive scale, as affording cotton of as fine a quality 

 as that produced in America from the same sort. 



Regarding the table which accompanies, the following explanation 

 of its objects and contents may prove useful. The first eight columns 

 show the kind, the average produce, charges, and cultivator's profit on 

 an acre of ground under cotton cultivation, also the time of sowing and 

 gathering in each district : the ninth exhibits the number of square feet 

 required in each to produce one pound of seed-cotton, calculated at the 

 rate of 43,560 square feet per acre and 25-lbs. per maund. This me- 

 thod of examining the subject by bringing it better within the grasp of 

 the understanding, and more forcibly contrasting the rate of produce, 

 enables us to form a more correct estimate of their respective advan- 

 tages and fertilities, and of the degree of encouragement that should be 

 given to any particular kind of cultivation in each. The next four co- 

 lumns exhibit the agricultural charges, assessment, and profit on an 

 acre of rice cultivation, and the number of square feet required to pro- 

 duce a pound of paddy at the rate of 231-lbs. per mercal. The remain- 

 ing four columns refer to dry grain crops. The numerous blanks in 

 the last two sets originate in omissions of the district returns. 



* This is surely a mistake, as it seems" utterly impossible that nearly 58,000 lbs. of 

 seed-cotton could be produced on a patch of ground the usual out-turn of which rarely 

 exceeds 500 lbs., and which is said to produce an immense crop when it amounts to 1,000 

 lbs. At the rate of 14,000 square feet to the beegah 144 lbs. is equal to 1 lb. to 100 sq. feet 

 and not II lb, to the square foot. 



