# Modern Hyderabad (Deccan)/Chapter 14

CHAPTER XIV.
The Cotton Industry.
Cotton being the largest export of Hyderabad State, the cotton industry holds an important place in the eyes of His Highness's government.
The area of cultivated land under cotton to-day is three million acres, and most of the cotton is grown in the Maratha districts, where the soil is peculiarly well-suited to it.
The opening of the Hyderabad-Godavari Railway, in October 1900, gave a great impetus to the growth of cotton in the Nizamabad, Nander, Parbhani and Aurangabad Districts, where many ginning and pressing factories came into existence as soon as heavy machinery could be brought there by rail. Bombay buyers then began to arrive in considerable numbers during the cotton season, which lasts from October to December, and as they paid cash for the cotton and would even send coolies to cut it and bring it to the cotton marts, more and more land began to be put down in cotton ​by the ryots. Hand-gins gave place to ginning machines, and the ryots ceased to weed their fields carefully, and to cultivate only the best cotton. Grain and pulses then became more expensive, so much of the best land being laid down in cotton, and Marathwara entered upon a critical period of its existence. Says the new Census : — "The evolution from the agricultural to the manufacturing stage has already begun in Marathwara...... When a country begins to produce the raw materials of manufacture in place of food crops, it has started on the road to industrialisation."
One of the most serious developments, after the ginning and pressing factories sprang up, was the mixing of the three sorts of cotton grown in the State — the Gaorani, Nambhri, and Bharat varieties.
In the days of hand-gins, Gaorani, which is said to be the indigenous variety, had by its long staple gained for Hyderabad cotton a high place in the cotton marts. But the buyers, who came in numbers from Bombay and elsewhere, showed a preference for Bharat, which has a short staple, but is a hardy coarse cotton that will stand rough handling and climatic difficulties, and yields a far larger crop per acre than the Gaorani variety. ​ And, to make matters worse, some buyers mixed the three varieties together and sold the mixture as "pure Gaorani," thus causing in the spinning rooms "weeping and gnashing of teeth."
During the last four or rive years Hyderabad cotton has been losing its good name in the cotton markets, and although exports have not fallen off, the prices paid locally have become less and less. So in November 1912, the Director of the new Department of Agriculture went to investigate "the rapid deterioration in progress in the fields around the chief cotton marts," and he came to the conclusion that Bharat is preferred by the buyers because it can be soaked. Water adds weight, and Bharat does not show water, while Gaorani becomes yellow when it is damped.
No one denies that at Parbhani, and the other cotton centres, the cotton is watered in ginning and pressing factories once, twice and even three times, before being pressed; but then the same thing is done in other parts of India, and the cotton looks none the worse for it. The Director suggested a Cotton Adulteration Act, and if it be true that Bharat has ousted Gaorani because the ​latter cannot be watered, then, no doubt, such an Act might prove very beneficial. But his former chief, the Director-General, Revenue Department, wrote that "many years ago, there existed the Bombay Cotton Frauds Act, but it was found unworkable, and after a few years' experience was repealed."
"No legislation," said this gentleman, "can prevent a practice of this kind, carried on, as it is, openly, with the knowledge of purchasers and consumers."
I believe I am right in saying that, about three years ago, watering cotton in ginning and pressing factories in Berar was stopped by order of government, and that this order has benefited all persons except the buyers, who desire to add weight to their bales of cotton by means of water.
Mixing cannot be stopped by order of government, but watering can, and that without much trouble.
The remedy proposed by the former Director-General, Revenue Department, was "to pursue a steady course of selecting good seed, and proving to the ryots and the trade that unadulterated Gaorani cotton is the most profitable both to the producer and the ​consumer." And this he said was to be done by planting Gaorani cotton on government farms. "The policy of the Agricultural Department," he said, "is not to establish large expensive model farms, but rather to demonstrate by small experiments in various parts of the country, what can be done at a reasonable cost."
"If a thing is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well," and when I visited these government farms in 1913, I found them much too small to do more than look well on paper. As to Gaorani seed, the ryots can get it from the men who still buy nothing but Gaorani cotton; but they prefer to buy mixed seed because the present demand is for mixed cotton — that is to say for Bharat, with a little Gaorani and a little Nambhri mixed with it.
I have read in one of Maharaja Sir Kishen Pershad's administration reports that pro- vision has been made in the administration for special commissions, and I think that much good might be done if such a commission were to enquire into the management of the ginning and pressing factories, the injury done to cotton seed by the machinery used to-day, the mixing of the three varieties of ​cotton and the excessive damping of the same before the cotton is pressed, the cotton seed that is now exported to Europe, the 50 per cent, interest taken by sowcars in the cotton districts, and many kindred subjects.
There are in the State three large spinning and weaving mills and about 90 small ginning and pressing factories. The population supported by cotton spinning, sizing, and weaving is 69,943 persons; and by cotton ginning, cleaning, and pressing, 517,750 men, women, and children. The wages paid to the employes in these places are good, but the cost of living in Marathwara is very high, owing to the many holdings that are put down in cotton, and the uncertainty of the rainfall, and nowhere are the people more at the mercy of the money-lender than in the cotton country.
The Agricultural Department has opened some small State banks, and these, too, might form a part of the work of the special commission, for the principles on which they have been based are open to comment.