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being the largest export of Hyderabad State, the cotton industry holds an important place in the eyes of His Highness's government.

The area of cultivated land under cotton to-day is three million acres, and most of the cotton is grown in the Maratha districts, where the soil is peculiarly well-suited to it.

The opening of the Hyderabad-Godavari Railway, in October 1900, gave a great impetus to the growth of cotton in the Nizamabad, Nander, Parbhani and Aurangabad Districts, where many ginning and pressing factories came into existence as soon as heavy machinery could be brought there by rail. Bombay buyers then began to arrive in considerable numbers during the cotton season, which lasts from October to December, and as they paid cash for the cotton and would even send coolies to cut it and bring it to the cotton marts, more and more land began to be put down in cotton