Cultivation of Sugar and Cotton in the East Indies [pp. 511-543]

542 CULTURE OF SUGAR AND COTTON IN THE EAST INDIES.
Gathering.-The season for gathering differs in India with the
place of growth.
Mr. Gilder, at Guzerat, picked his Bourbon cotton from the end
of November to the close of January-a second, but more scanty
crop occurring in May.
In Central India, Baboo Radhakant Deb says, the pods are ripe
in the month Choyte, when the sun enters Pisces (mid-MNarch to midApril), and that the gathering continues until the close of May.
About Dacca the crop is gathered in April, May, and June; and
where the situation is beyond the reach of inundation, a second crop,
but inferior in quantity and quality, is obtained.
In Bundelcund, on the poorer soils, the crop begins to be collected
about the middle of September, but from those of the richer and
more northernly situated soils, not until November and December.
When the pods are ripe, which they are in less than two months
after blossoming, three of their sides burst and the cotton protrudes
through the fissures. In five or six days after the pods have burst
the cotton is usually gathered, though it is often allowed to remain
longer. At Surat they wait for ten days. and continue the gatheril.g once after every similar lapse of time until the close of April, by
which time the cotton is all gathered.
There is no doubt that the being allowed to remain so long without being gathered after the pods have burst, is not injurious to the
quality of cotton, but it is at the same time quite as certain that it is
in no way beneficial. Granting this, however, to be immaterial, the
plan of allowing it to remain seems objectionable, upon the plain reason that every day renders the skin of the pod and the leaves of the
calyx more brittle, and consequently increases the liability to injure
thle quality of the crop by their fragments getting intermixed.
I have a strong opinion that it would be found in every way advanitageous to gather each pod immediately that it shows symptoms
of bursting, as enabling the cotton to be separated from it without so
rluchl liability to contamination ifrom its fragments. However thlis
r.ay be, experience teaches us that the gathering should be effectedtl
very early in the mnorning while the (lew is upon the plant; the calyx
is: at that time pliant, yielding to the hand without breaking, and conseqluently keeping the cotton free from leaf.
In gatherilng, care must be taken to grasp at once all the locks of
cotton in the podl, so that they may come away together. If any
dry- leaves fall upon the cotton before the gatherer has secured it in
t'e bag hanging by his side, they must be carefully removed. This
bag mlust be covered to prevent the admission of pieces of the dry
leaves, always to be found about the branches, and which are disturbed by a very slight agitation. It is this admixture of leaf
whichl is so much objected to by the spinner and proportionately
lowiers the value of the cotton. After gathering, it should immediately be thoroughly dried, whether it is to be stored or at once
dressed and packed. A woman in America will generally gather
twice as much per day as a man.
The pods which burst the earliest, usually those on the tops of
the shrubs, produce the finest cotton; the quality as well as quantity diminishing as the plants decrease in vigor. This is so appa