The indigo of Bengal is divided into two classes, called, in commercial language, Bengal and Oude; the first being the produce of the southern provinces of Bengal and Bahar, and the last that of the northern provinces, and of Benares.  The first class is in point of quality much superior to the other.  The inferiority of the Oude indigo is thought to be more the result of soil and climate, than of any difference in the skill with which the manufacture is conducted.  The indigo of Madras, which is superior to that of Manila, is about equal to ordinary Bengal indigo.  The produce of Java is superior to these.

Large quantities of indigo, of a very fine quality, are grown in Scinde.  I have to acknowledge the receipt, from the Indian Government, of an interesting collection of documents on the culture and manufacture of indigo in Upper Scinde.  The papers are chiefly from the pen of Mr. Wood, Deputy Collector of Sukkur, though there are several others, perhaps of much value, from various other of the revenue officers of Scinde.

Mr. Wood is of opinion that Scinde is much better suited than Bengal for the production of this dye-stuff—­the alluvial soil on the banks of the Indus is equal in richness to that on those of the Ganges, and the climate seems equally well suited for the growth of the plant.  But in two years out of three, the crops of the Bengal planter are injured by excessive inundations, while the work of gathering and manipulation is necessarily performed, during the rainy season, under the greatest imaginable disadvantages.  In Scinde, on the other hand, the inundation of the river is produced almost solely from the melting of the snows in the Himalayas, and it is not liable to those excessive fluctuations in amount, or that suddenness in appearance peculiar to inundations chiefly arising from falls of rain.  The Granges sometimes rises ten feet in four-and-twenty hours, and at some part of its course its depth is at times forty feet greater during a flood than in fair weather, while the Indus rarely rises above a foot a day, its extreme flood never exceeding fifteen feet, the limits and amount of the inundation being singularly uniform over a succession of years.  Moreover, as rain hardly ever falls in Scinde, and when it does so only continues over a few days, and extends to the amount of three or four inches, no danger or inconvenience from this need be apprehended.  Mr. Wood mentions that hemp may be grown in profusion on the indigo grounds, and that were the production of the dye once introduced, it would bring hundreds of thousands of acres now barren into cultivation, and secure the growth or manufacture of a vast variety of other commodities for which the country is eminently fitted.  An experimental factory might, it is believed, be set up for from two to three thousand pounds, but this appears to be an amount of adventure from which the Government shrinks.

The districts of Kishnagar, Jessore, and Moorshedabad, in Bengal, ranging from 88 to 90 degs.  E. latitude, and 221/2 to 24 degs.  N. longitude, produce the finest indigo.  That from the districts about Burdwan and Benares is of a coarser or harsher grain.  Tirhoot, in latitude 26 degs., yields a tolerably good article.  The portion of Bengal most propitious to the cultivation of indigo, lies between the river Hooghly and the main stream of the Ganges.