successful. For instance, Mr. Wroughton, the
collector of Coimbatore, has reported the results
of his own experiences to the following effect:
Three advantages, he tells us, were possessed by
his district over America in the cultivation of
American cotton. First, there were fewer
contingencies to guard against. Secondly, the soil
was more congenial. Thirdly, labour was much
cheaper. On the first point, he stated that while
the Indian cultivator had only two evils to dread,
the drought and the grate, the American cultivator
had six contingencies to guard against—
namely, the rot, the rust, the caterpillar, the
frost, and storms of wind and rain. On the
second point, he stated that his land at Ootacamund
had yielded nearly one thousand two
hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre, which
would give three hundred and fifty pounds of
clean cotton wool, while the average crop of the
best soils in America was only four hundred
pounds of clean cotton wool per acre. But,
even granting that the productive power of the
American soil was superior, still the cheapness
of labour in India would enable the cultivator
to produce much cheaper cotton. In India the
cultivation was peculiarly a family undertaking,
little children plucking the cotton, after some
practice, as well as the women. Dr. Wright,
adds Mr. Haywood, obtained as much as one
thousand pounds of seed cotton per acre, and
ordinarily five hundred pounds per acre, by
his experiments. On the abandonment of Dr.
Wright's experiments, his farms were made over
to the ryots, who followed up the cultivation,
and realised five hundred pounds per acre of
native cotton from one field of twenty-two acres
of black soil, and from a similar field of red soil,
one thousand two hundred and fifty pounds of
American seed cotton per acre.

It is also affirmed, in a letter from a gentleman
in Oude, published the other day in Calcutta,
that recent experiments made with Egyptian
and American seed in that province have been
entirely successful. Yet the former attempts
had been failures. The different result is owing,
we are told, to the simple fact that the former
experiments were made at the wrong season of
the year, and under conditions which made
success almost impossible. Give it but a fair
chance, and the finest quality of seed will be
productive, not only in Oude, but in most other
parts of India. This fact, when it becomes
generally appreciated, will dissipate the common
delusion that it is only for the coarser kinds of
cotton that the soil of India is adapted. At
present, we were told the other day by Mr.
Haywood, in his speech to the Manchester
Cotton Company, the Dharwar district is the
only one in which American seed has been
cultivated to any extent, and this has been mainly
through the perseverance of Mr. Shaw, the
collector of the district, who was determined to
make the experiment succeed. The result of
his exertions has been that Dharwar is covered
with American cotton, and that the produce
stands at the head of the London and Liverpool
markets. The Cotton Supply Association
has endeavoured to extend the culture, but Mr.
Haywood believes that time is required to
acclimatise the seed. The Madras government has
deprecated the culture of American cotton,
upon the ground of the former failure of the
experiments; but this Mr. Haywood considers
to be a mistake. The successful cultivation of
American cotton in India, he says, ought to be
the first duty of the government. It may be
very well to improve the native growth as far
as it is capable of improvement, but the nearest
road to success is through the extensive
distribution of the acclimatised seed. No one
acquainted with the subject can doubt that the soil
of the Indian cotton-fields would yield ample
produce; and with regard to labour, out of one
hundred and eighty millions of labourers, at least
four millions—equal to the slave population of
the Southern States of America—could most
certainly be found for the cultivation. There
is no real reason why India should not produce
not only as large a quantity, or even a larger,
but as fine a quality of cotton as the Southern
States. But it is agreed by all the best
authorities that the system must be changed. The
cotton must be properly prepared for the market,
under European superintendence; and presses
must be established to diminish the bulk of the
article and facilitate transit. The cotton-press
establishments in Bombay realise a profit of from
twenty to thirty per cent; and these are to be
extended into all the districts embraced by the
company, which will also sell machinery to such
of the natives as will purchase it. Already,
indeed, Mr. Haywood tells us, machines costing
sixteen pounds each, have been bought in some
instances—a "material guarantee," most
certainly, of the willingness of the natives to
engage in the cultivation. He adds, that the
question of extending the operations of the
company and purchasing land in the interior
depends upon the trade itself, and the support
received by the company; but under no
circumstances will the company become
cotton-growers. The natives are well competent for
this part of the work; all they require is
European direction.

But although practical measures are being at
last taken to obtain an increased supply of
cotton from India, the old prejudice against that
country is evidently not removed from the
Manchester mind. At a conference held the other
day at South Kensington between a deputation
from the Cotton Supply Association and the
representatives of the countries showing samples
of cotton at the International Exhibition, the
President of the Association, referring to India as
the country next in importance to America as a
source of supply, said that they had nothing to
learn from India, except how to mismanage
their business, and produce the worst cotton
grown on the face of the earth. This remark,
although not of course involving a denial of
the capabilities of India, with proper management,
to supply the place of America, was far
too sweeping, and was calculated to produce an
effect which one can scarcely suppose was