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[Page 5]
N 1.
The seperate modes of culture of the different species of cotton in the Guzerata Dzina Nerma capass.
All the Purgunahs I have visited in the Guzerat, are Horizontal level, and intierly cultivated with cotton. That species which is marcket with N1. is chiefly cultivated in Dolea, Brodra, and Jumboseer Purgunahs, where the soil is of a warmer nature than the adjacent districts. The flower is red, and the seeds of a greenish hue, of which the Cattle is remarckably fond. The Quality is here considered superior to the yellow, on which account they distinguish it by the name of Dzina nerma Capass which signifyes the finnest cotton of all. The time of sowing it is on the higher fields as soon the rains loosen the ground, and enable the planter of ploughing it, the seeds is then sown either by itself, or intermixed with Bagery, and Joary, into narrow furrows at 3. feet, and often at 3½. from each other, according to the grain that is intended to be sown with it:
As this species of cotton newer produces any considerable quantity of wool for the first season, on account of it thin growth, the planters reduce twice the delicate branches during the cold season by which means the shrub acquires a greater vigour, and produces the following year a plentifull crop till late in the hot season. The pruning has no limited time, in this, the planter must be chiefly guided by the growth of the shrub, and to prune the delicate sprouts as to form a shruby plant. The inhabitants of Brodra however, make a general rule of croping pruning it for the first time, and reducing the leading branches about 2 feet from the ground: directly after the rains have ceased, at which period the plant has already acquired the height of 4 feet. The second time occurs in the later end of the cold season, this is about March, and April, when they then leave their cotton plantations until the rainy season sets in again, when, they interplant them with rice, or intersow them with Bagery, and Joary, the former grain is however more common, and more adeptible for the space betwixt the cotton shrubs.
As soon the rains set in, this species begins to flower, but the pods ripening at that period are thought nothing of by the inhabitants, till the rains are intierly over, which they then gather almost daily, and the two first crops are considered the finnest, which is occasioned by the influence of the moderate moistness, which the soil still retains since the rainy season, and assists the vegetation, which otherwise is checket by the emence heat, which commonly succeeds after the rains; and occasions the fibres of the wool, coarse, light, and very short.