Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/156

 this part of the country, and which is the most advantageous mode of growing them, and also for the purpose of keeping up a supply of acclimatized seed for distribution and giving the growers practical lessons of how to improve their hus- bandry. Moreover as the produce increased the agent could gradually introduce good hand gins, and get a great deal of the cotton well cleaned by the people themselves. Besides the produce of Etawah itself, a factory at Etawah would command the whole produce of the very extensive cotton field of which it is the centre and which includes a great portion of Dholpoor, Agra, Muttra, Mynpooree, Fur- rackabad, Cawnpoor, Jalown, and the North of Gwahor. I don't hesitate to say that with two or three years of libera^ just, and ready-money transactions 25,000,000 lb. of clean cotton could be easily sent home annually from here, and if a system of advances to intending cultivators was adopted, I should not despair of multiplying the amount many times. The business would require capital, temper, time, intel- ligence, and liberality, and what is not common in India, regular business habits — but it would, I believe, be very profit-^ able, and a few such agencies in India judiciously locate<(L would I believe enable our merchants in Manchester to command an almost indefinite supply of cotton of any quality that the physical conditions of soil and climate permit the growth of. What the highest quality here obtainable really is time and repeated experiments on a considerable scale, by men who know exactly what to try and how to try it, alone can show, but that the present standard can be very considerably raised even without the introduction of new varieties, I have myself twice practi- cally proved. Even supposing that no cotton better than the sample sent were to be usually grown here, the scheme I propose would I conclude be remunerative. At present, the grower sells it to a petty dealer, after having " mangled " it with an infamous " churkha " that very seriously injures the fibre, the petty dealer sells it to a native merchant, who packs it (without any press, and so badly that it has to be repacked down country), and exports it sometimes direct