In Burclwan the Wesbee or native cotton plant is sown in the rnonth Ashar. The soil is ploughed four or five times, the seed is kept in water for three or four days, is taken out on the day before it has to be sown, and is then mixed with ashes nnd cow-dang, and in this state is scattered over the ground, which is then again ploughed. Some cultivators, however, put four or five seeds in small boles at the interval of about cubits. In the month of Magh (January—February), when the plants become cubit high, they are watered. The picking of the Wesbee cotton is commenced in the month of Cheyt, corresponding with April, and finished in June and July (Joyte). Nurma cotton is cultivated in the month of Ashar, cor responding with June. The roots of the plants are well covered with earth. No irrigation is required, as nurma cotton is a rainy season plant. Its cotton is picked in November and December.
The Garo, Tiperah, and Chittagong hills pro duce a large quantity of inferior cotton, called Bhoga. It is used in the manufacture of the inferior kinds of hummum, bafta, boonee, saree. jore, etc., also for making ropes aud tapes, and the coarsest of all fabrics, viz. garlia and guzeeh, which are commonly used for packing other cloths, and for covering dead bodies, for which purpose a large quantity of them is consumed annually both by Hindus and Mahomedans. A piece of guzeeli cloth, measuring 10 yards, could be purchased for 12 annas (eighteenpence), which is the one hundred and twenty-fifth part of the price paid for a piece of mulmul-i-khas of the same dimensions.
In Tirhut the cottons produced aro of the kinds called Bhojra, Bhogla and Kooktee ; the two former ripen in April and May, the Kooktee ripens in September. The fabric manufactured from Kooktee cotton is not white, but of a stained white colour, white cotton being produced only from the Bhojra a,nd Bhogla kinds.
The soil upon which the cotton plant in Cachar is grown, consists of ft rich red clay, considerably mixed with sand, which forms the soil of the principal hills in the district, and also of the small ranges of hillocks that run through it. The cotton cultivation lies on the slopes of these hills and mountains, such lands being never inundated, although they are wonderfully retentive of mois ture. The same hills and slopes became in great request for the cultivation of the tea plant, the soil beim* peculiarly adapted for its growth. The cotton seeds, together with others, are put in iu March and April ; they are planted irregularly, but never closer than from 3 or 4 feet apart. The whole cultivation is weeded three or four times during the rains. The cotton flowers in July and August ; the picking commences in September, and is continued till December.
In Burma, the cotton grown is Gossypium herbaceum, and it reaches a very fair staple. The soil on which it thrives best is the alluvial deposit left by the numerous mountain streams and rivulets on their subsidence at the close of the south-west monsoon. It also grows very well on recent forest clearings, where, often, soils contain ing a, considerable portion of peaty matter and lignite are met with, and appear very suitable for the good of the plant. It appears to thrive also in a limestone soil, which abounds in these pro vinces.
Cotton grows all over China. The Na,nkin variety is called Tsz-hwa. The Kiang-hwa plant grows in Central China. The cotton plant of Shan-tung and Peh-chi-li is called Peh-hwa, and Cheh-hwa is that of Che-kiaiig. China has
ever been a largely importing country. The cotton-growing area in that country is, however, very large. The yellow cotton from which the beautiful Nankin cloth is.manufactured, is called Tze-mie-wha by the Chinese. Although the yellow variety has a more stunted habit than the Dther, it has no characters which constitute a iistinct species. It is merely an accidental variety ; and although its seeds may generally produce the game kind, they doubtless frequently yield the white variety, and vice versa. Hence specimens the yellow cotton are frequently found growing amongst the white in the immediate vicinily of Shang-hai ; and again, a few nines northward, in fields near the city of Pou-shan, on the banks of the Yang-tze-kiang, where the yellow cotton abounds, Mr. Fortune often gathered specimens pf the white variety. Nankin cotton is chiefly cultivated in the level ground around Shang-hal, where it forms the staple summer production of the country. This district, which is part of the great plain of the Yang-tze-kiang, although flat, is yet several feet above the level of the water in the rivers and canals, and is consequently much better fitted for cotton cultivation than the plain of Ningpo, where the ground is either wet and marshy, or liable at times to be completely over flowed. The soil is a strong rich loam, capable of yielding immense crops year after year, although it receives but a small portion of manure. The manure applied to the cotton lands of the Chinese is obtained from the canals, ponds, and ditches, which intersect the country in every direction, and consists of mud which has been formed partly by the decay of long grass, reeds, and succulent water plants, and partly by the surface soil which has been washed down from the higher ground by the heavy rains. In the end of April and beginning of May, the land having been prepared in the manner just described, the cotton seeds are carried in baskets to the fields, and the sowing commences. They are generally sown broadcast, and then the labourers go over the whole surface with their feet and tread them carefully in. The cotton plant produces its flowers in succession from August to the end of October ; but sometimes, when the autumn is mild, blooms are produced even up to November. As the pods are bursting every day, it is necessary to have them gathered with great regularity. When perfectly dry, the process of separating it from the seeds commences. This is done by the well-known wheel with two rollers, which when turned round draws in the cotton, and rejects the seeds. It is a simple aud beautiful contrivance, and answers well the end for which it is designed.—Reports of East India Company on Colton, p. 350 ; Agri-Horticultural Societies'of India and of Madras ; C. B. Saunders, Esq., Coninir. of Mysore ; Dr. Cleghorn, in Rep. Brit. Association ; Bonynge, America ; Proceedings, Madras Govt.; Friend of India ; Cal. Ileview ; Indian Field ; Royle, Fib. Plants ; Boyle, Pro ductive Resources of India ; Annals, Ind. Admini stration ; Madras Chamber of Commerce ; Dublin University Magazine • Elliot,. Supplement ; Cotton Report, 1857 ; Exhib7. Jur. Rep. 1862 ; Alexander Mack,ay's Conimerce Reports, 1853 ; Walter R. Cassell's Cotton,. 1862 ; J. G. .114-edlicott, Cotton Handbook, 1862 ; J. T. Wheeler's Cotton Hand book; Dr. Shortt's Letters ; Low's Sarawak ; Mark ham, Peruvian Bark; Central Committee, Lahore ; Carnegy ; T. B. Lane, Esq., Collector, Tirhut ; Smith.