92 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1883. 



it. It should be allowed to remain on the tree until about 

 the latter end'of July or the 1st of August, at which 

 time the grafts may \ic gradually relie%'ed of their tyinijs, 

 and, if need bo, carefully supported, to prevent them a:;aiust 

 injury from the action of violent winds. — J. T. McLauen, 

 Assistant Forester. — Joimial of Fore^tti/. 



Ut. 



A Si;GaESTED NEW AGRICULTURAL 

 RESOURCE. 

 A. J. Maule, of the nvu-series, Stapleton Road, 

 Bristol, has published an experimental treatise on the 

 i'licca glarinsa, or Adam's Needle, as a sugar and fibre- 

 producing plant, which cannot fail to interest British agri- 

 culturists, landed proprietors, &c., who would be only too 

 grateful to any person who would now point out to them 

 some means of improving their prospects acid profits from 

 the soil — profits which in many cases are simply nil. Mr. 

 Maule believes that the Yucca may be cultivated in this 

 country with commercial success, while affording employ- 

 ment and light field-work for many hands ; ti lb. of the 

 leaf of the plant producing of 1 lb. fibre and 1 lb. 

 of sugar, the former being superior to New Zea- 

 land flax, and capable of bemg woven into a material 

 almost equal in fineness to .lapanese silk. To the treatise 

 are appended two testimonials, one from Messrs. Terrell 

 and sons, rope and twine-spinuers, and another from Mr. 

 Bond, of the Redcross Brewery. The former, who have 

 tested the ibre, bear witness to its value commercially, 

 if a continuous quantity could be secured at a moderate 

 cost : and Mr. Bond, in sending the author a small cask 

 of beer brewed from the saccharine extracted from 

 the Yucca by Mr. Maule, pronounces it excellent. " It 

 will not keep long (he adds), as from its crude state it 

 contains much vegetable matter; but ou testing it by the 

 saccharomelur, I find it registers two degrees more sacchar- 

 ine than others." Thus, two most important articles, for 

 the supply of which we are mainly in the hands of foreign- 

 ers, Mr. iMaide, consider we can have at home. " The 

 great Create.;-,' he writes in a note which accompanies his 

 pamphlet, " has made the world round, no doubt the pur- 

 pose of giving all living things a chance, and what they 

 get in the tropins from heat I get from cold." 



The Yucca rather likes a high and dry situation, to 

 enable it to avoid too much moisture, and is planted in 

 rows on ridges similar to mangelwurzel. 



•■ When once the plantation is made, there is no further 

 trouble m digging or ploughing as with other crops, only 

 to be kept free from weeds, and, perhaps, a little top- 

 dressing occasionally may assi.st them. The previous sum- 

 mer's leaves are stripped off about February, but may re- 

 , main on until wanted, and used through the spring as the 

 inirket may require. This season is recommended for 

 reasons hereafter mentioned, as the frost in wi[iter play- 

 ing on the foliage causes the secretion of sugar. The 

 constant stripping off the foUage does not appear to affect 

 the strength of the plant in the least. When I began the 

 experiment i' extract the fibre, I thought the decompos. 

 ition in water, as the flax is treated, too tedious; .so I 

 resorted to boiling, and after boiling a few leaves for one 

 hoiu- (an experiment any one may try), I rinsed the leaves 

 as you would a towel, laid them ou grass in the open air 

 to dry and bleach. I then fouud the liquor very clammy 

 and sticky, giving off an aroma like malt and hops, and 

 feeling certain there was a large mount of saccharine, I 

 kept Tt gently simmering, when to my surprize I found 

 .m abundance of syrup of sugar. I extracted a still fur- 

 ther quantity, and sent it to a brewer, when it produced 

 an excellent glass of beer, and proved in its crude state. 

 Mi sent in, to possess two per cent, more saccharine than 

 the foreign sugar under the test of the saccharometer. 

 It has been thought by scientific men that sugar cannot 

 be grown in sufficient quantities in this country to pay, 

 for the want of sun, a\id no doubt it is true as regards 

 a summer-growing plant, l>ut if you find a plant whose 

 nature is saccharine that will stand frost, it gets a gieater 

 sugar-making influence from cold than it does from heat, 

 there bemg no difference in the effect of extreme cold 

 and extreme heat on substances and vegetation that are 

 capable of enduring. The farmer turns up his laud in 

 summer to receive the benefit of the sun, and he does 

 the same thing for the winter's frost — both of which have 

 the same effect." 



In fact, he asserts cold and frost operate on the leaf 

 of the Yucca as the sun does on the cane, and produce 

 more saccharine here than in the tropics. 



Altogether, the idea started by Mr. Mavde (who is quite 

 a horticultural philosopher) is very interesting, and may 

 be very important. Fancy thousands of acres of land in 

 England laid out in Yucca plantations — half the island 

 bristling with Adam's Needles — hn^echintf and bcerh/;/ the 

 population from what has hitherto been considered only 

 a garden ornament I — Forestry. 



SILK-INDUSTRY. 

 Utiliz.vtion or Wild .Silkworms in British-India. 



Mr. Thomas Wardle, manufacturer at Leek, Staffordshire, 

 has lately given me some interesting details about the in- 

 dustry of the silk obtained from silk-worms that are found 

 in a wild state in British- India, an industry undertaken by 

 him with devotion, and encouraged by the managers of the 

 South-Kensington Museum. 



Since long it has been an object of research t« find new 

 sorts of spinning-caterpiUars for procuring sUk to replace 

 the ordinai-y silk-worm (Bombex Mori), which seems to de- 

 generate more and more by prolonged culture. The Paris Ac- 

 climatisation Society, especially, has entered upon the sub- 

 ject with great ardour-, and indeed not without cause. How- 

 ever the results have hitherto not been of great influence. 

 In ourcoiintry,too,manyJtrialshavebeenmadewith the Yama- 

 Mai and Ailantus caterpillars, with little success for industry. 

 In British-India, however, a favourable epoch seems to 

 have davraied for the culture of wild silk-worms, since ex- 

 periments have been made on a large scale, especially by 

 Major Coussmaker at Poonah. Most of these silk-worms 

 feed ou the leaves of trees and shi-ubs growing wild in 

 British-India. The silk is mostly coarser of fibre than the 

 common silk. 



One of the principal sorts is the Tusser or Tusseh (An- 

 theraca mylitta L.) a silk- worm which for centuries has 

 been collected wild in British-India and in China. This 

 caterpillar feeds on the leaves of various trees, such as the 

 Dayeti (Lagerstroemia Indica), the Bher (Ziziphus Jujuba), 

 the Kaimda (CarissaCarindas),the Ani (Terminalia Arjuna). 

 The cocoons of this caterpillar are collected througho-it 

 British-India by the natives, and yield many thousand pounds 

 of silk. The silk is mostly worked up in India to half-sUken 

 stuffs with cottou warp, in some parts also to whole silk. 

 The cocoons are collected by natives and brought up by the 

 traders. 



The caterpillars and butterflies of this species are much 

 larger than the mulberry-caterpillar, and the silk is thrice 

 as thick. The Tusser caterpillar, iu spuming, brings by side- 

 movements of its he.ad, the silkthreads into a parallel, zig- 

 zag, very closely-pre.ssed position, it coats these fibres with 

 a gummy matter and moreover with a hardening cement 

 Idnd of "moisture, by which the whole cocoon becomes firm 

 and hard, with a dirty colour. By treatment with boiling 

 water and alkaloid this matter is dissolved, the chrysalis 

 killed and the cotton prepared for commerce. Yet the per- 

 forated cocoons from which the moth has ah-eady escaped, 

 are also bought up as an article of commerce, and em- 

 ployed for making silk. The buyers pay from fl. 0.75 to 1.5 

 cents a hundred ; the sound ones are sold to the cultivators 

 for fl. 1.80 to fl. 2.40 per hundred. 



One of the most important applications of Tusser-silk since 

 18S0 in England, is the making of a stuff (called seal-cloth) 

 as a substitute for seal-skin, being a Tusser silken plush 

 on a cotton back. The use of this material for ladies' 

 winter-cloaks has a great advantage over seal-sldn, because 

 the woven back is perfectly porous. The Tusser silk is 

 peculiarly fitted for this manufacture, by its softness and 

 brightness, and by the thick fibres which bear pressure cap- 

 itally, whereas with ci mmon silk such tong nap would soon 

 get entangled. 



Seal-cloth has a rv'\ appearance and soon recover from 

 the consequence of da'u]) or pressure, by just airing it before 

 the fire and then Ini.shing it. For this manufacture the 

 the Tusser silk is spen to thread, without winding it off 

 from the cocoons, ami its apphcation to thispurpo.se is ex- 

 tending moreaud more. The manufacture has a great chance 

 of rivalling the //•();) 1 1 'trecht velvet) and pos.ses,ses a pecul- 

 iar fitness for the uses to which woollen velvet is ])ut 



