Page:Modern Hyderabad (Deccan).djvu/138

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126
MODERN HYDERABAD.


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