cotton, and every thing else was neglected by the starving cultivators, who were intent only, on procuring food enough to maintain life.
So general a failure in the first experiment has proved most unfortunate, as it has tended to damp enterprise and destroy that hope of better success in after trials which would have resulted from success, however partial, in the first attempt, and seems to have put an almost entire stop to the further prosecution of these experiments, in which, by the way, the natives never seemed to take much interest, partly perhaps through apathy, but more probably, because they were frightened at the anticipated additional trouble and expense without seeing any very certain prospect of adequate remuneration. This was more to be regretted, as success can scarcely be anticipated where the parties engaged in rather expensive and troublesome experiments have no direct interest in the result. The civil establishment could have none, and though they were, from their better knowledge of the advantages likely to accrue to the country from success, most willing and anxious to promote the introduction of the new kinds, yet being hampered by the strictness of the regulations of the service, were prevented aiding and stimulating to the extent that might have been required, native efforts for its attainment, added to which, was the uncertainty existing, on the part of the growers in the interior, of finding a ready market for an article less esteemed by the native manufacturer than their own short stapled but strong cotton, in the manufacture of which, long practice had conferred perfect facility. Impediments such as these are not to be overcome unless by persons who are really interested in the result, who can devote much of their time to the superintendence of the cultivation, can at all times command a ready market for their produce, and lastly, who have a considerable amount of capital to invest in the business.
The mere distribution of seed to ryots will not accomplish these ends in their present state of ignorance, poverty, and depression, for they at once say, the cost of ploughing and preparing the ground is so much, suppose this new seed is bad, or the plants do not thrive, or I do not know the proper seasons to sow, and gather in the harvest, who is to pay me for my lost time and labour, or to provide that proportion of support, for myself and family, that I would have derived from a crop of our own, less valuable it may be, but yet well known cotton, which I know how to cultivate, and which long experience informs me will not disappoint my expectation. This I cannot say for yours, since I never saw it growing, and as I am a poor man with a large family, I dare not engage in speculative experiments.
That such is the true source of aversion on the part of the natives to engage in these new kinds of cultivation, and neither apathy nor indifference to their own interests, of which they have a keen perception, is rendered evident by the fact, that in those districts, Salem, Tinnevelly, and Coimbatoor, where the cultivation of Bourbon cotton has taken firm root under the superintendence of European Merchants, the natives cultivate it of their own accord, as readily or nearly so, as the indigenous country cotton, well knowing, that the crops of it are as certain as those of the other, and the demand for it equal if not greater. The American, short stapled cottons can be cultivated as easily and with equal certainty of success in these districts, but are actually discouraged, though they succeed well, as being more troublesome and expensive to clean, and much less valuable, both as an article of export commerce, and for domestic consumption among themselves, than the Bourbon cotton.
These instances, though the only ones I know, of unquestionable success on a large scale, prove indubitably the existence, in the Southern provinces of the Peninsula of India, of a soil and climate favourable for the production of these, in Europe, more esteemed varieties, and go far I think to show that if they have not succeeded elsewhere, that it is mainly for want of the proper encouragement being held out to the only persons qualified to cultivate them at a cheap rate, the native cultivators ; which, on this side of India, maybe fairly attributed to the want of European speculators, possessed of sufficient capital and enterprise to give the necessary impulse ; as it is through European enterprise alone, that success has been attained to the extent here stated. In this conviction I am farther confirmed, from the result of experiments I have had in progress during the last twelve months, on too small a scale, it is true, to admit of any very certain conclusions being deduced, but still, such as to convince me, that with no other care than they receive in field cultivation, that both the Bourbon and short stapled American cottons may be successfully cultivated in our common alluvial soils, but more profitably in the red ones, which are largely charged with the red oxide of iron. The long stapled or sea island cotton has not succeeded with me, not because the plants themselves have been more delicate or less adapted to
