Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/159

 the means of conveyance could, as far as I can see, be improved v^ould be by the construction of a better class of barges for the transport of the cotton by river. These should I think be iron, and built in compartments. The sinking and burning of the boats now in use are a source of great loss.

15. The growers have only the common seed. If really good seed were furnished them numbers would be glad to buy it on a small scale at first and if it succeeded on a large scale afterwards. The fact is that as far as my experience goes, Hindoos like Englishmen, are perfectly ready to take any good advice or. adopt any good plan, if you can only I demonstrate to them practically that it pays. That is the ) touchstone. If the higher quality for any reason does not pay them so well as that they now grow, they will after a few trials abandon it — if it pays better you may depend on their sticking to it. One thing that is necessary for the successful growing of the foreign varieties is a short practical manual, drawn up with reference to the requirements of this country and these provinces. Louisiana and Alabama are not at all like the North- West provinces of India, and prize essays on the cultivation of Orleans staple cotton in the Valley of the Mississippi, are believe me but of little value in Etawah no matter how " experienced " the " planters " from whom they emanate. A good practical manual such as we require could be best compiled after a few years of experience at an Experimental Farm of the kind alluded to in my twelfth answer.

16. The native " Churkha " is the only instrument here used at present and they have no press for baling it. The cotton is packed for the market in the most primitive fashion imaginable. Bags of a cylindrical form, about 4 feet long by 3 feet in diameter, open at one end, are suspended (so that the bottom is about a foot off the ground) by four or more ropes run through the edges of the mouth or open end, to a like number of poles firmly planted in the ground round about the bags. The cotton is then thrown in little by little, and a man standing inside the bag keeps steadily treading it