An intelligent friend of mine, now in India, says that the pod of cotton is overhung by a brown leaf (bractea?), and if the cotton is gathered early in the morning, whilst the dew is on the plant, this leaf is tough and does not break, and the cotton is gathered clean; but if it is picked after the dew has evaporated, this leaf is brittle, and gets mixed with the cotton in the picking.  But he says that no persuasion can induce the ryots to keep that which is picked in the morning from that which is gathered in the heat of the day.  He also suggests that the cotton should be irrigated during its growth, and alleges as a motive for doing this, that in Egypt and Peru no good cotton can be grown without resorting to it.  But the cases are not exactly parallel, inasmuch as no rain falls in either of these countries, whilst rain is most abundant in India, eighty or ninety inches of rain sometimes falling at Bombay in three months during the monsoon.

Another intelligent gentleman with whom I have conversed on this subject since my former letter was written, and who has resided at Bombay many years, where he has paid much attention to this subject, tells me that the gentleman entrusted by the East India Company with the management of one of the experimental cotton estates, assures him he has grown excellent Orleans cotton, and that the ryots were so satisfied with its superiority over the indigenous kind that 1,200 begahs (say 300 acres) were planted with it.  But this was two years ago, and as the disturbances took place in this very neighbourhood, he fears these plantations have perished, as he heard no more of the matter, and had omitted to inquire of the gentleman entrusted with the management.

I reserved this until I saw the second letter from your correspondent G. F. R., which I have now read, as well as an article on the same subject in the “Manchester Guardian,” in which it is stated that 20,000 acres are now under cultivation, planted with this improved cotton.  I fear this is too good news to be true.  My informant is a gentleman who was in correspondence with Mr. Mercer, the superintendent of these cotton estates, or some of them, and I have again questioned him.  He says that the crop which would be gathered in March last, would amount to what I have stated (1,200 begahs), according to Mr. Mercer’s letter to him, but he says it is now twelve months since he heard from Mr. Mercer, as he left Bombay for England shortly after.  His fear was that none of this cotton would be gathered, as the disturbances which took place in Central India, and which required so long a time to quell them, were in this very district.  If your correspondent G. F. R. has got samples of this improved cotton, of the second or third generation, he would confer a great obligation upon me by sending me a small sample of it by post.  But this is wandering from what I intended to say, which was most heartily to thank your correspondent for his second