1837.] Transactions of the Agri-Horticultural Society cf India. 167 



tition with America, since we know we can stand up against a great 

 redaction of price below the present rates. The great object, therefore, 

 is the extensive production of that variety of cotton in common use, 

 as clean and as carefully prepared as may be consistent with cheap- 

 ness ; that an expensive article may be a fallacious improvement, and 

 that an inferior article, if saleable at all, may be more profitable than 

 a confessedly good one : and, such being the case with our short fibred 

 inferior annual cheap cotton, it must still continue the great staple of 

 India, since the supply of American long staples, must always be 

 sufficient to meet the demands of the market, the proofs in support of 

 these positions are adduced in subsequent papers, and, being superior 

 to ours, will always have the preference. 



We believe we shall not be accused of partiality in presenting the 

 above as a fair, or rather indeed favourable, exposition of Dr. Lush's 

 views, as stated in the two first parts of his memoir published in the 

 Bombay Courier of the 11th and 15th October, all that Mr. Bell 

 appears to have seen when he wrote his remarks. 



Mr. Bell, in his reply, leaves the determination of the botanical 

 question to be dealt with by botanists, but thinks " when Dr. Lush 

 comes forward confidently before the public with a new theory, to 

 which he is anxious all should subscribe, it is time to enquire upon 

 what sort of foundation his hobby is built, and whether practical men 

 will be satisfied with the soundness of his doctrines, when placed in 

 juxta-position with practical proofs." 



Alluding to a statement of the Editor of the Bombay Courier, that 

 for thirty years fruitless attempts have been making to introduce the 

 foreign varieties of cotton, he observes that it would have been more 

 satisfactory, had Dr. Lush inquired into the causes of these failures, 

 and given them to the public as a preface to his essay, in lieu of a 

 vague theory " wilder, in his humble estimation, than the anticipation 

 of the wildest enthusiasts," as he would then have laid the public 

 under an obligation — that an extension of the principle would equally 

 apply to the non-introduction of other foreign plants, as the Otaheitan 

 sugar-cane, which has been successfully and advantageously introduced 

 — that, whatever weight Dr. Lush's opinions may carry in Bombay, 

 he hopes no one in Bengal will be scared from his good intentions in 

 endeavouring to introduce superior productions, until better proofs are 

 adduced by the publication of the sources of failure. Why does not 

 Dr. L. state on what experimental farm he observed the conversion of 

 green-seeded American, into a black-seeded smooth cotton, and his 

 authority for assuming that black-seeded cotton was in reality from 

 green-seeded American ? If there was so much attention paid to 

 the transformation of seed, why was there not equal attention paid 

 to staple ? — practical men paying little attention to seed, provided the 



