Vol. VIII. No. 200. 



THE AGRICULTQRAL NKWS. 



409 



A New Mexican Fibre. 



In L'Aiiriculturc Fratiquc ties Pai/s Clmads for 

 September 1909, an account is given of a new Mexican 

 fibre, the iiiforniation concernincj which was furnished 

 bv the American Consul at Manzanillo. It is obtained 

 from the plant Centaurea salmantica, which is known 

 locally as ' escoba '. This is a kind of shrub which 

 attains a height of IS inches to .5 feet. Its name, which 

 means ' broom ', is derived from the fact that the 

 natives cut it every year, and, after having dried ir, 

 mnke small bundles of it, which they use for brooms. 



In those paits where it is abundant, large r-jpes 

 are made from it in the following manner. Aftf-r cut- 

 ting it, the natives sink the shrub in a slowly running 

 stream for about two days, afoer which treatir.ent, the 

 balk is easily removed. When it has been stripped 

 and washed, it yields a long, delicate and .'^ilky fibre, 

 which is very strong and of which the ropes are made. 



The plant grows abundantly in open places, and 

 when it is cut at the end of the season it makes 

 a second growth which is sufficiently large for a fre.sh 

 crop to be obtained from it after the f illowing rainy 

 season. It does not require any cultivation or replant- 

 ing, and grows very vigorously. On account of the 

 strength and durability of the fibre ahd the abundance 

 of the plant, a large industry will probably be estab- 

 lished, as much for the manufacture of ropes as for that 

 of the sacks which are used in every part of Mexico for 

 carrying burdens on the backs of animals. 



Oil Seeds in British India. 



According to the Monthhj Coasnlar and Trade 

 lieports for October 1909, practically all the cotton- 

 seed e.\'ports from Bombay go to England, two-thirds 

 of the sesamum seed from Bombay to France, and 

 nearly all the ground nuts from Madras to France. The 

 largest export of ground nuts from Bombay took place 

 in the fiscal year 1895, when 7S,4S'S tons were des- 

 pitched to foreign ports from Bombay alone. Since 

 then, the figures have rapidly fallen to 2,890 tons 

 during 1903, and at present this once important export 

 trade may be considen d as practically extinct, as far 

 as Bombay is concerned, the decline being attributed 

 to disease and exhaustion of the soil, to the restricted 

 areas and reduced out-turn consequent upon unfavour- 

 able seasons, and to the large use of the nuts in the 

 manufacture of oil for local consumption. 



Very little, if anj-, cotton seed is pressed for oil in 

 India. Interest is just beginning to betaken in the 

 possibilities of an indigenonsindustry for the production 

 of edible cotton-seed oil. It is estimated that the 

 cotton seed available for such a purpose is 1,500,000 

 tons a year, India being ne.xt to the United States as 

 the greatest producer of raw cotton. 



The exports of ground nut oil to foreign countries 

 are not of sufficient importance to be given a separate 

 heading in the Government trade returns. In the fiscal 

 year 1907, only 17,000 gallons was exported. There 

 is, however, an enormous trade in this article between 

 the port of Madras and Burma. Madras is the centre 

 of both the ground nut and ground nut oil trade. 

 Ground nuts seem destined in the near future, however, 



to e.xcite much more interest than in the jiast for the 

 Government is making ever}- effort to improve i he seed 

 by the introduction of a new and better quality (r»m 

 Mozambique and Senegambia, In the Madras Presi- 

 deii';y, where it has hitherto been raised on a system- 

 atized scale in a very circumscribed area on the 

 Coromandel coast, it has been introduced with the most 

 encouraging results, and on the Malabar coast it is now 

 grown as a dry land crop, where it has proved far more 

 profitable than the dry land crops that are usually 

 grown. The bulk of the Indian manufacture of ground- 

 nut oil is in the hands nf ordinary native pestle-and- 

 mnrtar pattern rotary mills. 



The quantity of sesamum oil exported in the fiscal 

 year 1908 was 161,581 gallons, valued at 8105,123; and 

 in 1909, 174,210 gallons, valued at S105,254. Almost 

 all of this goes from Bombay, and the chief markets 

 are Mauritius, Arabia, Aden and Ce3lon. 



The Lumber Trade of the West Indies. 



Information concerning this trade is given in the 

 Weekli/ Report of the Ijepartinent of Trade and 

 Commerce, Canada, No. 289. From this it appears 

 that the lumber trade of the British West Indies, 

 British Guiana and Bermuda amounted during the 

 year ending March 1909, to £561,624; of this sum, 

 £421,922 was the value of imports, and £139,702 that 

 of exports. Of spruce, white pine and hemlock, the 

 amount from Canada wms £41,931 and from the United 

 States £29,142, showing a difference in favour of 

 Canada of £12,789. 



In unclassified lumber, the imports from the United 

 States were £37,273 and from Canada £9,900. Of the 

 wood imported, pitch ])ine had the greatest proportion, 

 its value being .tll4,375: all this came from the South- 

 ern States of America. In the export of wood from 

 the above paits of the West Indies, Jamaica, British 

 Guiana, Trinidad and the Bahamas led with £90,277, 

 £27,370, £7,882 and £6,178, respectively. 



Tile Manufacture of Guayule Rubber. 



In the Journal of Industrial and Engineering 

 Cliemistry ior April 1909, an account is given of the 

 extraction and manufacture of Guayule rubber. It is 

 shown that the shrub, when perfectly dry, contains 

 9 per cent, of pure rubber. The extraction of the rubber 

 by such solvents as carbon disulphide and benzene has 

 ceased to be employed in Mexico: in only one case is 

 this effected by boiling for six hours, with a solution 

 containing 6 per cent, of caustic soda. Mechanical 

 processes for extraction are almost exclusively employed 

 now in this industry. 



The rubber obtained is black, of a pitch-like 

 consistency, and contains 20 per cent, of resin. Inves- 

 tigations have shown that the wood of the stem does 

 not contain any caoutchouc; the largest amount is 

 yielded by the bark of the stem and the root. Of 

 these, the former contains 21 '4, and the latter 19'5 per 

 cent. The rubber ^'ontent of the branches and leaves 

 is 9.7 per cent. 



