sometimes even to a month. The time when irrigation would certainly be useful as far as our present information extends is at the conclusion of the rains, when there is suddenly a clear sky, heat, and rapid drying up; even then it would require to be judiciously applied, in order to make the transition gradual from the wet to the dry weather, but still the foliage would be in many places that of an exotic, which had been for months luxuriating in moisture and suddenly exposed to a different set of physical phenomena. In the more dry parts of the country this difficulty would not be experienced and the crop would be more easily raised than in a locality which might be considered more favorable, as richer both in soil and climate: it is possible to produce good Cotton in the sands of Egypt solely by irrigation, but the climate there is dry and the plants have at no time been under the influence of a rainy season. * : One difficulty with irrigation from canals in India is that they are usually allowed to dry up during the rainy season. During this time there is apt to be from the heavy rains considerable damages to the canal banks, which it will necessarily take a little time at their conclusion to repair. But it is at this very time, and immediately, that irrigation would be alone useful. But the subject is of so much importance that it is extremely desirable to ascertain carefully the effects of irrigation on the American Cotton plant in two or three of the dry districts of India, as for instance in the Deccan, North-West India, and in the Punjab. The necessary facts might be ascertained on a small scale, as for instance with 1 or 5 acres in an open field, as well as with fifty. With regard to the effect of irrigation on the indigenous Cotton of India, Mr. Landon, who had had much experience, emphatically pronounced against it: he said before the Colonization Committee, in 1858, that irrigation, as applied to Cotton in India, had completely failed. Mr. Balston, however, who had seen much of the country, stated to the same Committee that "the effect of irrigation on the Cotton plant "of India is to raise it from a small stunted annual, producing 50 or "60 lbs. of clean Cotton per acre, to a large perennial plant, producing "400 to 500 lbs., equal in quality in any thing grown in America. "It improves the quality of the Cotton, and brings it up to the standard " of the American crop. Water never fails to lengthen the staple "of Indian Cotton." |