Abstract

During the first half of the nineteenth Century, the East India Company conducted extensive trials on the cultivation of American Cotton all over India, in order to develop the raw cotton resources of the colonies for feeding the textile industry of England. The results though disappointing opened the eyes of the then State Governments and indicated the desirability of taking up improvement work on the indigenous races in addition to acclimatisation of extra-Indian varieties of Cotton. The progress of cotton research in India has since then not only kept pace with the growth of mill industry but has also helped the country in forging herself to a very prominent place among the nations leading in textile manufacture. The textile industry of the Madras State owes a great deal to the fruits of cotton research done at Coimbatore and attached centres.

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