of this improved
variety; it does not--like cotton in the United States--go on from
ten bags to ten thousand, in eight or ten years; on the contrary,
so far as I can learn, it dwindles away to nothing. The Tinnivelly
cotton brought forward as an example by your correspondent is no
exception to this--it is no more like Bourbon cotton, than Bowed
cotton is like Sea Island--at least none that I ever saw. Bourbon
is a long, silky-stapled cotton, whilst Tinnivelly has the
shortness and inequality of fibre common to most of the cotton of
India. It is generally much cleaner than the cotton grown on the
western side of India, but this arises from the greater care in
picking it.

An intelligent friend of mine, now in India, says that the pod of
cotton is overhung by a brown leaf (bractea?), and if the cotton
is gathered early in the morning, whilst the dew is on the plant,
this leaf is tough and does not break, and the cotton is gathered
clean; but if it is picked after the dew has evaporated, this leaf
is brittle, and gets mixed with the cotton in the picking. But he
says that no persuasion can induce the ryots to keep that which is
picked in the morning from that which is gathered in the heat of
the day. He also suggests that the cotton should be irrigated
during its growth, and alleges as a motive for doing this, that in
Egypt and Peru no good cotton can be grown without resorting to
it. But the cases are not exactly parallel, inasmuch as no rain
falls in either of these countries, whilst rain is most abundant
in India, eighty or ninety inches of rain sometimes falling at
Bombay in three months during the monsoon.

Another intelligent gentleman with whom I have conversed on this
subject since my former letter was written, and who has resided at
Bombay many years, where he has paid much attention to this
subject, tells me that the gentleman entrusted by the East India
Company with the management of one of the experimental cotton
estates, assures him he has grown excellent Orleans cotton, and
that the ryots were so satisfied with its superiority over the
indigenous kind that 1,200 begahs (say 300 acres) were planted
with it. But this was two years ago, and as the disturbances took
place in this very neighbourhood, he fears these plantations have
perished, as he heard no more of the matter, and had omitted to
inquire of the gentleman entrusted with the management.

I reserved this until I saw the second letter from your
co