January i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



523 



and leggings from the sharp thorus with which the 

 leaves .ire armed. The cultivation ia of the simplest, 

 the under growth is cut down and rooted out, and 

 the laud grubbed up, the plants are then put down 

 about 2 feet apart, in some places 2^ feet, and 3^ feet 

 between the rows. In dry localities the spaces be- 

 tween rows might be utilised for water channels, as 

 both quantity and quality of crop is injured by drought. 

 Ouoe planted the only cultivation neces-ary, is to 

 keep the soil free of weeds. Should it be contem- 

 plated sending the fruit to a distant market, they 

 must be cut green, aud in the West Indies where the 

 fruit is exported, a large portion of the plants are 

 taken a3 well. Ships are fitted up for the tiade with 

 tiers of shelves on which the fruit is packed, this 

 arrangement allows of the passage of air, and the 

 lowemiost pines are not crushed and spoilt, as would 

 otherwise be the case, with the weight of those abov^. 

 The business is fuund very profitable in a good season, 

 but ruinous in a bad ; tuo much, or too little rain, 

 armies of lais, laud crabs, and bush fires, are a few 

 of the ills the cul ivatur has to fear. As regar.is 

 growing the plant for fibre only, the fruit should not 

 be allowed to form, iin 1 tlie leaves will then grow 

 larger aud broader. The well known pine-apple cloth 

 is made from this material in Cuina, and the fibre 

 has been sent there from Singapore. In Eastern aud 

 Lower Bengal wliere the soil seems particularly well 

 adapted to this plant, the fibre is not apparently ap- 

 preciated tl oul;'i its strength and fine quality seem 

 to be well enmigh known. In 1836 Dr. WsUich pre- 

 sented the Society with ? hag which he had " pur- 

 chased for a tnfie at Cherra Poonjee" made of this 

 material, be says the mtives used the fibre for the 

 manufacture of such small fancy articles. In his letter 

 to the Society, Dr. Wallich says: — " Con-iiidering the 

 enoruiiius quantities of pines grown in that region, 

 the plant appearing as it it were quite a natural pro- 

 duction, the fibre of it is worthy of attenti'in." An 

 allusion is made to it in a paper by Lieut. -lol. Walton 

 in the Asiatic Society's Journal for 1832, alluding to 

 the great abundance of the pine-apple plants in the 

 adj tcent valleys to Cherra Pcnjee, " the sanitary 

 station recently occupied by the East India Company," 

 and that the natives use the fibre as a material for 

 bags and pouches. 



In 1839 Miss Davy in answer to an advertisement 

 published by this Society, submitted some thread made 

 from pine-atjple leaves, of which she remarked that it 

 was "equal to the finest Jiax thread manufactured in 

 Europe," and considered it comparable with tho bpst 

 cambric thread. Miss Davy thought a beautiful table 

 linen could be made with it, aud a lace resembling 

 blond. This lady e\entually, though with some diffic- 

 ulty, owing to the conservative objections of the Dacca 

 weavers whom she tried to induce to make some cloth 

 from this fibre, manufactured liandkerchiefs, cuffs, and 

 some clnth which are alluded to in the proceedings as 

 " elegant specimens." Som^' thread was sent home but 

 the English spinners seem to have been as prejudiced 

 against this fil>re as the Dacca weavers weie. 



The method employed for extracting the fibre in 

 Manilla, China, and the Khassia Hills seem to be 

 identical, the leaf is spread out on a hoa:d and scraped 

 with a blunt knife which removes the pulp, and expo<es 

 the fibres which are then raised taken hnld of at oue 

 end and pulled off the leaf with a j-rk, the pulp 

 which underlie-s the fibre is Bgi'n scraped and the 

 operation repeated, tinally the fibre is combed and 

 dressed like a handful of woman's hair. 



I imagine the iai])lement used in Mauritius for ex- 

 tracting the fibre of the Aloe leaf would be very fuit- 

 abK' fur the pine-apple too, and as tiiere is le.ss pulp 

 to deal with, tbe operation a!iould be much quiokcr. 

 In this Society's .Journal for 18.53, pome tr ala of 

 various tibreu made by Messrs. Harton dc Co., of 



Calcutta, are published ; a SJ inch in circumfereuce 

 rope made of pine-apple fibre easily bore the Govern- 

 ment test of 42 cwt. and eventually broke with a 

 weight of 57 cwt., more thau the Govei'nmeut bi-eaking 

 test. 



INDIGO IN THE NORTH-WEST PROVINCES. 



[Aa the cjuestion of indigo cultivation in Ceylon has 

 been started, we take a few extracts from an article 

 in the Indigo Planters' Gazette shewing that the phut 

 needs first-rate soil and the most careful tillage. — Ed.] 

 The soil best suited for Indigo in these districts is 

 one neither too dr}' and sandy, nor too stift' and 

 clayey, with a, light free subsoil, one that does not 

 retain water: in a wet subsoil the young plants either 

 die olf, or, if they do live, they grow up sickly, 

 stunted plants. As a general rule, the safest plan 

 i» to follow the classification of the villa,'e revenue 

 paj ers, which divide the land into 1st, 2nd, and 3rd 

 ijuality, and to take for Indigo sowings nothing but 

 lands down in the village papers aa first quality, only 

 being careful that such lands are not liable to be 

 swamped by heavy raius ; and that there are no tanks 

 adjoiuiog the fields, for «h< n these tanks are full, 

 they are apt to keep the ."ubsoil very wet aad water- 

 logged, the plant on such fields never comes to any- 

 thing. The Indigo plant revels in a moi-it atmosphere 

 aud a moist soil, but cannot stand a wet soil, es- 

 pecially a wet sour subsoil. 



Neither Manager or Assistant can go far wrong 

 with regard to the quality of the land'', if he take* 

 yoind lunds, that is, lands about the village ; these 

 1 luds are always well manured, and wdl produce heavy 

 crops cf iiidigo when well cultivated. Fields that 

 are sites of old ruins, uo matter how thickly they 

 are covered with brick-bats, liroken pottery, and old 

 mortar, also produce heavy crops of indigo : such 

 fields invariably have a trace of noona — nitrate of 

 potash— in the soil 



Duriug the hundohust, and more so when the lands 

 are being measured for t '>e ziUabaiidie, great care ia 

 necessary, and a sharp lo' k-out kept that no poor 

 lands, or lands that hoi 1 water, :.re taken ; more 

 especially the latter, for by good cultivatiion you may 

 get a fair crop off poor lauds, but no ainouut of 

 good cultivation will give a crop off water-lo^^ged 

 lands, or lands with a wet sour subsoil. 



Indigo can be sown, and will gerniiuate, in svery 

 month in the year, provided the ground is well pre- 

 pared, and contains the requi-site moisture: as a matter 

 of fact, it is sown in every month, exc^^pt December 

 and January. 



The sowing season "must very often, aud to a 

 great extent, be made to depei.d on climate." The 

 soasou for Bengal will not be the best for the North- 

 West. Then again, though the indigo may be sown 

 all the year round, there is uo doubt that there ia 

 only oue season that will give the best results, and 

 the maximum yield, and what that season is, can only 

 be found out by careful records being kept of the 

 different months in which the indigo has been sown, 

 and of the produce from such sowings, both in plant 

 and tncil. It is a well known fact, that the indigo 

 plant cannot stand much moisture; the conclusion then 

 is obvious, that to make it a rainy whetlur crop is 

 a mistake : there then remains the October, Spring and 

 Jamawah sowings, all these three sowings do not give 

 tho same result, tho oue that gives the best results, 

 taking into cosuideration "conditions of soiland weather, 

 wliich vary to greatly, that what is best one year, is 

 not best another" should be the one fixed on: accurate 

 records should be made for several yeaiv, "so as to 

 hit wet or dry, cold and hot, bad and lood years." 

 It is of the greatest importance that lands for an 

 indioo crop be will ploughed, and th« )iurf«o? noil 



