Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/154

 three months from 15 June to 15 September, no irrigation is required or resorted to. But when there is a failure of rain during the early part of the season the people irrigate wherever they can ; but if the rain still holds off irrigation is generally abandoned as too expensive and of little use. The out-turn is best when the rains cease a little before the plant flowers, which is on the average 75 days from the date of sow- ing in wet earth, or of the first good shower if sown in dry. The produce is scarce and of an inferior quality when rain falls on the flower, and still more so when it falls on the pod. We reckon a lightish loam best suited to cotton, and find that manuring it adds much more to the produce than it would in the case of wheat or barley — hence what little manure the people take the trouble to collect and cart i% usually devoted to cotton lands. Irrigation is available in about one fourth of the district from the Ganges Canal (or will soon be when all the minor irrigation channels are complete) and in about another fourth from wells, tanks, rivers, etc. The people as a rule believe that irrigation neither improves the quality nor increases the quantity of the produce.

8. Clean cotton is on the average one-third of the total picking, that would give for last year only an average of 50 lb. per acre and in good years 80 lb. In this district three times the land now under cultivation could be easily devoted to the growth of cotton.

9. Nothing would be easier than to extend the cultivation, if set about in a proper way. What we chiefly require are money advances, increased intelligence and a ready and good sale on the spot (see further No. 12).

10. The only obstacles are want of capital and intelligence and the extreme uncertainty of the demand (see further No. 12).

11. Of the produce of this district we estimate that not more than one-third is consumed by the natives of the district itself, but that of the remainder not more than 2,000,000 lb. is exported to England, the rest being absorbed in Bengal.

12. There are no European merchants in this or any of