The cultivation of the Keda or lowland variety of cotton is confined almost to the settled and open districts of Cuttack, Puri, and Balasore ; a little is raised in Dhenkanal and Khoordah. The best soil selected for this variety is do fuslee, or double crop. It is generally a light sandy soil, handy for irrigation purposes. The seed used throughout the district for lowland cotton is procured from Khoordah and Dhenkanal, it being alleged that none other will germinate in the lowland districts. It is placed in a pot, and soaked in dung and water for a night, and then dried by exposure to the sun on the following day. It is afterwards laid on straw, contained in an earthen vessel covered over with castor-oil leaves and placed near a fire. So soon as the seed splits and shoots it is planted, and watered at intervals of two, three, and four days. November and December are the usual months for the planting. The plants are annual, and attain a height of 4 to 6 feet. The cold weather showers falling occasionally in December, January, and February, favour the plants, and when plentiful, constitut,e a good season. The pickings are obtained continuously in April, 3fay, and June. In the latter month all the bolls are picked off the plants, and after exposure to the sun, open. After the inonth of June, the lowland cotton plants are plucked up, and tlie land cleared for a pulse crop.
Alladras Presidency.—As early as 1790, Dr. Anderson was employed in sending 3fauritius cotton seeds, as well Els brown cotton seeds, imported from 3falta, to different parts of the Peninsula ; and Dr. Roxburgh, who left Samulcotta in the Northern Circars, and took charge of the Calcutta Botanic Garden in 1793, had already ascertained that the elevated, dry, and less fertile soil of Coromandel was better suited than that of Bengal to the Bourbon cotton. He obtained its seeds from 31r. Hughes, who had for some time been engaged in the culture of cotton in the Tinnevelly district, and whose success was so considerable with Bourbon cotton, that for twenty years Hughes' Tinnevelly cotton continued to be quoted in the Liverpool market as the best from India, and sold at higher prices than the American short staple cottons, and 3d. per pound above the best Surats. The fact is important, on account of the latitude of Tinnevelly being only 81°, and because the success was evidently the result of skill applied to the culture. The produce, only 100 lbs. per acre, was fine in quality and much esteemed. The cottons of the Madras Presidency are more largely grown in the valleY of the Kistna, and in the Bellary, Kurnool, Tinnevelly, and Coimbatore districts.
At Cointhalore, the Oopum or best indigenous cotton is raised in rotation of two years, with eumboo, Panicnm spicatum, Penicillaria rpicata, and eholum or Sorghum vulgare. Thu Oopum
cotton is raised on black soil.
In Bellary, cotton is grown in drills along with cholum or millet ; with the former, the drilla are about six feet apart, and have from four to six rows of sorghum between each one of cotton ; with the latter, the drills of cotton are only three feet apart, and have two rows of millet between them. When the crop of the millet is cat down, a very singular and sudden change occurs ; one day nothing is seen but yellow grain, which on the next disappears, and a thick crop of green cotton plants, about half a yard high, remains. None of tho fields are enclosed, but they are generally protected at the sides of the road by rows of the prickly Jamaica yellow thistle, Argemone 31exicana.
In Vizagapatam, about lat. 17° N., very liberal pruning is practised, and the return is much greater than in any other of the 31adras districts. In sandy soils near the sea, the Oopum cotton yields the more largely.
In Mysore, large belts of land in the northern and central taluks are deemed excellent for cotton culture.
For a series of years up to 1850, Dr. Wig,ht, an eminent botamst, was employed in experi mental cotton-growing in the collectorates of Tanjore, Coimbatore, and Tinnevelly, and Ito formed the opinion that the less yield of the cottons ripening there in January, was owing to the insufficient warmth of that season of the year.
In Ceylon, cotton is grown very generally both by the Singhalese and Tamil races, but upon no regular plan nor to any extent.
Bengal Presidency. — The indigenous cotton of Dacca has long been celebrated for its superior quality. It is cultivated along the banks of the 31egna from Feringybazar to Edilpore in Bakarganj, a distance of about forty miles, on the banks of the Brahmaputra creek (the ancient channel of the river of the same name), and along the Luckia and Banar. It presents different shades of quality, the finest of which is named Photee, and is the material of which the delicate muslins are made. It was described by Roxburgh as differing from the common herbaceous cotton plant of Bengal in several particulars, chiefly in having a longer, finer, and softer fibre. It has, however, often been doubted whether the superiority of the Dacca manufacture was dependent on the skill of the workmen or the goodness of the cotton ; but, from Mr. Lamb's account, it appears to have been carefully cultivated. Probably both had some influence; and it is certain that the workmen prefer the Dacca cotton, because, as 3fr. Webb long ago explained, its thread does not swell in bleaching, as is the case with the cotton grown in North western tuni Central India.