24<5 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Oct. I, 1886, 



abundant harvests of that most prosperous province 

 British Burma, while Bengal supplies a small propor- 

 tion. Where rice cannot be cultivated the iiiiilets in- 

 variably take its place as the staple food crop of the 

 mass 01 the people. Even in wheat-producino; districts 

 this is true. Dr. Hunter is of opinion that, taking India 

 as a whole, it may be affirmed that the staple food grain. 

 is neither rice, nor wheat, but millet. Kxcludiny the 

 special rice tracts, varieties of millet are grown more 

 oslensively from ]\[adras in the south, at least .-i-! far as 

 JIajputana in the north. 



Sii(i(ti.<. — The raw and reliued sugars exhibited by 

 IMessrs. Turner, Morris, A' Co., of Calcutta, and Messr.*). 

 t^arew it Co., are examples of a cultivation and a tr;ide 

 which are more important at pre.sent for Indian in- 

 ternal commerce than for the prospects of increased e.\-- 

 portation. The 1,922,(X)0 acres of sugar-cane cultiv- 

 ation may be said to yield two million tons of coarse 

 sugar. Besides sugar-cane, sugar is obtained from the 

 date palm, or toddy palm, of Bengal, and ihe iialmyra, 

 or toddy palm, of South India, Bombay, and Burma ; 

 but the exports, in which the sugar-cane produce can- 

 not he discriminated from othi-r produce, oidy amounted 

 to one million ewt. as against the two midion tonsjust 

 mentioned. Improvements in the present defective 

 method of expressing the juice, and gradual removal of 

 the prejudice against retined sugars amongst the natives 

 of India, who chiefly consume _</vi/ or raw sugar, will 

 doubtless give a large stimulus to the internal trade. 

 A model prepared at Poona in order to show the method 

 of crushing the suga.'-cane in the Bombay Piesidency, 

 is exhibited in the Agr cultural (inncxe. The primitive 

 pestle mill is stiil the machine most gerjerally used over 

 the greater part of India for the extraction of cane 

 juice. The method of working it is shown in the model 

 village. 



Xaicotics and Sti/nnhuifs. — * * * Attention is called 

 to the exhibits of beer produced by the hill breweries, 

 the more important of which are in Madras and the 

 Punjab, and whose ale and beer are of an excellent 

 qHality, as may be seen by the fact that the import 

 of foreign beers in 1884-85 was 194,r)81 gallons less 

 than in the previous year. Another novelty is the 

 exhibit by bis Highness the IMaharaja of Kashmir of 

 the wines and spirits prepared in his kingdom. The 

 white wine obtained at Calcutta International Exhibi- 

 tion, a gold medal for its pnrity and superior quality. 



/inii/.t. — There are over thirteen hundred plants re- 

 puted by the natives of India to possess remedial 

 properties ; and as in all popular herbals which exist 

 unwritten as having been handed down from unknown 

 antiquity by tradition, a great number even of the 

 most highly-esteemed are valueless. The Sub-Court 

 devoted to drugs and medicines contains examples of 

 over one hundred indigenous drugs, which have almost 

 a'l attained a European reputation, and which most 

 thoroughly deserve to be more extensively used. From 

 Nepal a large series of aconites, accompanied by 

 botanical .specimens of ihe plants from which the 

 roots were obtained, has been sent by Dr. Gimlette. 

 The monkshood or wolvesbane, which grows on the 

 Himalayan heights, from an altitude of l(),0()i) feet to 

 the higiaest limits of vegetation, is equalled if not 

 surpassed in its poisonous and its curative powers by 

 its congener the Indian or Nepal aconite. The speci- 

 mens of cinchona or Peruvian bark numbpred 780, 

 bear their silent witness to the success of an enterprise 

 undertaken by the Government of India to acclimatise 

 if possible this invaluable tree, and so to bring 

 within reach of the population of India what u)) to 

 that time had been too costly a remedy. This was 

 primarily due to the travels and labours ot Mr. 

 Clements Markham, c.u., devoted to the examination 

 of the cinchonas of Pern in their native forests, and 

 their importation to and ultimate establishniHiit in 

 India in 186(1. Thepro Juct of the Government iilant- 

 ations at Darjiling and on the Nilgiris amounted 

 together in 1881-8;) to 4r)7,21.s lb., most of which was 

 manufactured into febrifuges. Extensive private 

 plantations also exist in Southern India, and theex))ort8 

 in 1884-8.") were valued at ne;irly flOH.UHi. 

 The epecimens of cinchona bark rcderred to above 

 are good, but of course not equal to tlie display 

 irom Ceylon. Next regarding 



Filji-e.i.—We now come to the vegetable fibres of 

 India. The more important of these, such as cotton, 

 jute, rhea, and other commercial fibres and paper 

 materials, are exhibited in separate sub-courts, and 

 require separate notice. But besides these there is an 

 extensive series of fibres which are regularly used by 

 the natives of India, though the large majority are 

 unknown to the textile manufacturers of Europe. The 

 Indian flora contains over ;{(K) fibre-yielding plantR, 

 one third of v,-liich afford strong arid useful fibres. 

 Some of these will be found illustiati-d in the • Kope 

 Trophy." near which are excellent samples of stair- 

 earpets and door-mats made of the well-known roir or 

 coconut fibre. 



All article on which a good deal lias appeared in 

 your ujlumns and in those of the T. A. is: — 



Ithea. — One cf the first and most important of the 

 commercial fibres, not so much in its present as in its 

 probable future utility, is rhea. The jjrize offered by 

 the Government of India for the most perfectly suc- 

 cessful machine for separating this fibre was, it is 

 true, not awarded, no single machine being deemed 

 able to comply at the time with ail the reciuirenients ; 

 but strenuous endeavours have within recent years been 

 made to overcome the difficulties of dealing with rhea 

 grass, and the difficulty of the separation of the fibre 

 has been overcome. The high price of the fibre itself, t - 

 gether, with its exceptional strength and durability, unfit 

 it for manypurposes. The Glenrock Company, Limited, 

 of the Wynaad, Madras, exhibit an interesting collection 

 of their fibres, showing not only rhea but also two or three 

 of the allied rhea fibres, including the so-called wild 

 rhea of South India. The wild rhea of Assam, and 

 various Nilgiri nettles, and, in addition, pine-apple fibre 

 and Manilla hemp, together with a large assortment of 

 aloe filjre, are also on view. 

 Eegarding paper, I quote the following : — 



The art of paper-making in India dates from the time 

 of the great emperor Akbar, and was first practised in 

 Kashmir. Ilapidly it spread all over India, displacing 

 the birch bark used by the hill-tribes, and the palm 

 leaves which served the people of the plains as the 

 vehicle on which they incised with a stylus their accounts 

 and written records, and of which examples are shown 

 in the Kducatiou exhibits. It is probable that the in- 

 habitants of the Eastern Himalaya, long previously to 

 that era, d(>rived the art fif paper-making a.3 iiractised 

 in Nepal from China. The Nepal papers, of which ex- 

 teiitsive collections are exhibited, are prepared from the 

 bark of two sorts of daphni^, and from the fibre of a 

 plant which grows along the Himalaya, and has recently 

 been found plentifully on the mountains of Manipur, ex- 

 tending to the northern frontier of Burma. The paper 

 manufacture of India, like the paper trade of England, 

 is still seeking for a new material. The piper trophy, 

 as well as the special show case contributed by the 

 Bengal Exhibition Committee, shows the paper mater- 

 ials ; the half stuffs, the manufactured papers from all 

 parts of India. The Bally Paper Mills of Calcutta, and 

 the Upper Indian Paper Mills of Lucknovv, are the chief 

 contributors; but besides, a large collection of jail and 

 native-made papers from all parts of India is exhibited. 

 Under oil seeds I read : — 



Ttie trade name of the sesame seed, which comes next 

 in importance, is another instance of commercial nomen- 

 clature derived from the first Portuguese traders. In 

 Colonel Yule's " Glossary" it is traced step by step from 

 the Arabic (d-jaljnliin, corrui)ted by the Spaniards into 

 ti/loiijoli, and so gra tli'ly transformed into Jinjali or 

 (jiiiitrli. It is usi-d it) India lor eulmary purposes, for 

 anointing, and also i'l soup furniture, and as a lamp oil. 

 It shares with the ground nuts the reput.ition of being 

 employed by European importers to furnish a sham olive 

 oil. Of the latter the cultivation may be described as a 

 modem industry, the trade in oil as a substitute for 

 olive oil having within the past thirty or forty years 

 developed in an almost unprecedented manner. The 

 value of the exports of ground nuts from India rose be- 

 tween ls79 and 188.5 fri)tn nearly £17,000 to something 

 »ver £3()0,000; and the exports from the French ports 

 in India were but little short of the same amount, the 

 total value being thus just over half a million stf.rling. 

 The bulk of thjs seed is shipped for the continent, priQ» 



