Page:Madras Journal of Literature and Science, series 1, volume 6 (1837).djvu/185

1837.]

(Second Notice).

At the conclusion of our last notice of this work, we promised to examine the commercial section in this number, and consider, somewhat in detail, the numerous papers connected with the cultivation of Cotton and Tobacco, as objects, in a commercial point of view, of primary importance.

The papers in the volume, more or less exclusively devoted to the consideration of these two plants, amount in all to twenty-one. Of these twelve make no reference to tobacco; five none to cotton, and four refer to both. We shall first consider

Cotton.—The first paper is a letter transmitting a bag of "Vine cotton seeds," said to be a very superior description of cotton, but of rather too long a staple! which from tending to weaken the fibre, lessens in some degree its value. The seeds were sent to Gowhatty in Assam, and to Mirzapore. It is to be hoped, should this first supply succeed, that we shall soon have an opportunity of trying it in Madras from seeds of Indian produce.

The next two papers on cotton, are letters from Colonels Colvin and Skinner, communicating the results of experiments for the introduction into the upper provinces of Upland Georgia cotton; the exertions of both of whom seemed to promise a very favourable result, but the matter was still doubtful at the period of writing. It seems strange on this side of India, in the inland districts of which the Bourbon cotton plant almost every where thrives, that it has not been more generally introduced in the upper provinces of Bengal. Here it is found a hardier and more productive variety than the Upland Georgian, and the produce higher priced in the English market by some pence, than the Georgian raised on the same lands, or in varying soils in the same tract of country. The fourth notice is a letter intimating the dispatch of a case of Peruvian cotton seed from Liverpool. The cotton is said to be very fine, referable to the long staple class of cottons, and worth about one shilling the pound at the time of dispatch; none of that kind, we believe, has yet reached Madras.

At Allahabad trials of Sea Island had failed, apparently from the seed being bad, but, in the neighbourhood, some Pernambuco seed had been sown and was most thriving. Transplanting had been tried to