Jaloun Jhansi, and Bnndelkhand lie to the westward' of the Jumna, and have always' been famed among the natives for their cotton.
Central India cotton has always been esteemed. The soil in many places is the black cotton soil. in some parts of Nagpur the field, is tilled and manured with ashes and cow-dung before sowing. In pargana Booudoo, besides the common Kapas, there are two other sorts of cotton, called Tureea and Gtrteh. The former is sown in October, and picked in April and May, the field being tilled ten or twelve:times before sowing. The latter is sown in July ; cotton is picked two or three times in April ; the trees last from three to four years, pro ducing cotton every year, and they are 2i yards high. This is grown by the poorest class in their own premises. The time of picking, speaking generally, is the whole of November and December, excepting in pargana Boondoo, where, as already stated above, the Tureea and Guteh or Gujar are picked in the mouths of April and 3fay. • In Berar, the Chundelee, a very fine cotton fabric of India, so costly as to be used only in native courts, was made from Amraoti cotton. The chief care bestowed was on the preparation of the thread, which, when of very fine quality, sold for its weight in silver. The weavers work in a dark under-ground room, the walls of which are kept purposely damp, to prevent dust from flying about.
Mr. Terry stated that the Amraoti coitbn, if well prepared, is equal to any American cottoh for the great bulk of the manufactures of Eng2 land.
Hinginghat cotton is admittedly one of the best staples indigenous to India. It ^is properly speaking, the produce of ,the rich Wardha valley, brought for sale to the Hinginghat market ; but a good deal of the cotton known in Bombay as Hinginghat is not really produced in the neigh bourhood of the town, but is grown elsewhere, attracted to Hingiughat by the ready market there found ; thus some of inferior quality goes into the market at Hinginghat. The best foreign cotton is that brought from Edalabad in the Hyderabad territory, where the growth of the Pain Ganga valley is collected. This cotton is reckoned quite as good as the Hinginghat staple, and is eagerly sought after.
The Bombay Presidency's best cotton districts are the Southern Mahratta country, about 16° N. lat., where experimental farms were established. In Gujerat and Kattyawardistricts, superior cottons have long been grown by the natives ; in conse quence of which, these were selected as the sites of the northern experimental farms much favour able land for the purpose being found between tbe latitudes of 21° and 24° N. The causes which favour the growth of cotton, esteemed both in India and England, in the tract of country extend ing from Surat and Ahmadabad, or from about lat. 21° and 23°, in a, broad band across Malwa to Banda and Rajakhaira, in about 25° and 27°, near the banks of the Jumna, are no doubt physical.
The black cotton soil which is spread over a great portion of this tract, has undoubtedly a consider able share in producing the result ; but good crops of cotton are produced in soine parts where there is no black soil, ai immediately on the banks of the Jumna and in the Doab.
In the Kandesh model farm in 1875-76, the average yield was 50 lbs. of clean cotton per acre of the Hinginghat variety, the maximum being 130 lbs. per acre. The average in the Nagpur model farm was 50.6 lbs. per acre. On unmanured land only 28 lbs. per acre. On Syedapet farm, the western variety yielded 353 lbs, per acre, and in the Sind Hyderabad collectorate the yield WitS 346-94 lbs. per acre of uucleancd cotton.
Cotton, wheat, and bajra (Pen icillaria spicata) all ripen in Gujerat at the same period of the year, about the end of February, and the cotton-picking continues to the middle of April. The first pickincr of cotton affords the best kind, the second is the most abundant, and the third is greatly inferior to the other two, both in quantity and in quality.
In Cuttack and Orissa there are two highland or upland varieties, the one called the Daloona, because the plants throw out numerous branches. The second kind of upland is called yellow, from the colour of the flowers ; the flower of the Daloona being white. A third variety may be called the lowland; and is known locally as the Keda. The. upland varieties are groWn more or less all over the Gurjuto or Hill States, wherever a virgin forest soil exists. They are grown generally in the Sumbulpore district and its dependencies, throughout the Tributary States, and in Dhenkanal and Khoordah. .A virgin forest soil is the only requisite for the successful cultivation of these varieties. The jungle is cut down, all the brush wood cleared, heaped and burnt on the spot, the stems and roots of the larger trees being left in the ground, which then receives a superficial ploughing. These clearings are callell taela, and the cotton grown in theni Taela cotton. These preparatory processes are attended to in Sum bulpore, Khoordah. and Dhenkanal, just before and during the first falls of rain, in the latter half of May and the first half of June, so that the plants shoot and grow and arrive at maturity through the rainy months. Dwarf paddy, sooa, Panic= Itahewn, Eleusine corneana, bajm, or castor-oil, aro sown with the cotton seed broadcast. The edible seed-crops iu the third or fourth month are gathered as they ripen, then the ground is weeded and turned about. Iu January and February the cotton plants yield the first picking, and a month after the castor-oil seed ripens, and its plants are plucked and retnoved. Daloona cotton plants last for two or three years, and yield three pick ings annually, and reach a height of 9 to 12 feet. With the yellow upland, it is not so generally the practice of sowing other crops.