Handbook to the Cotton Cultivation in the Madras Presidency. By
J. Talboys Wheeler. (Virtue, Brothers, and Co.)—Tho Indian Govern- ment was desirous of having an analysis prepared of the public records relating to cotton cultivation in Madras, and entrusted this duty to Mr. Wheeler. It has been very well performed. The handbook contains an ac- count of the experiments in the growth of Now Orleans cotton, which certainly seem to establish that the plant can be grown in India. But whether this can be done at a profit can only be determined by private enterprise. That cotton can ever be grown again in the Southern States at the price at which it stood before the rebellion is not probable, but we doubt whether Asia Minor and Egypt are not likely to prove rivals to India quite as dangerous ; the former has a damper climate, the latter a natural irrigation, while the rain in India falls too much at one season of the year. Freights from India, too, must always range higher.
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