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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1887 



vestigated. The practice of the simple Santal in 

 mending his iron cooking pot by means of the sal 

 resin (the resin of Shorea rohusta) suggests a use 

 for that, at present, valueless substance, as it indi- 

 cates also a personal acquaintance with its proper- 

 ties. It is not at all improbable that the properties 

 of this and many other little-known gums and re- 

 sins will commend themselves in the future to persons 

 who may be in search of substances with properties 

 we have not as yet been educated to require. The 

 useless hog-gum (the gem of Oochlospermum Gossy- 

 jtium), consigned falsely as tragacanth, has been 

 accidentally discovered by the bookbinder to be in- 

 valuable for marbling purposes, and the gum of 

 StcrcnUa iiirns has been found to restore to tasar 

 silk the lusture removed from it during an improved 

 process of reeling that fibre. Practically, the one 

 requirement for gum in Europe is a strong and use- 

 ful adhesive mucilage, and although with care in 

 selection and packing, India might easily come to 

 play a much more important part in this trade 

 than it has done in the past, India has, at the same 

 time, gums and resins which possess distinctive 

 properties, each one of which finds in India a market 

 in meeting the demands of some indigenous indus- 

 try. But I have said enough to indicate the long 

 category of the unimportant products of India. The 

 bulk of these products are, however, unimportant 

 only in a European sense. The people of India are 

 indeed children of nature; they are perhaps far 

 more dependent upon nature than any other com- 

 munity in the same condition of civilisation. Natural 

 or wild products not only form the bulk of their 

 ornaments and their children's toys, but there are 

 few people in India who are not dependent, to a 

 large extent, for food on the plants climbing the 

 village hedgerows, or floating over the tanks which 

 their ancestors excavated. They are herbalists, and 

 their medicinal plants are all gathered from the 

 neighbouring jungles. To the people of India, there- 

 fore, the products I have, from a comparison with 

 the trade done in the staples of India's foreign 

 commerce, designated as unimportant, are by no 

 means so. The diffusion of definite and accurate in- 

 formation regarding these substances will, in some 

 instances, extend their use from one province to 

 another, and in others create a foreign demand for 

 them. Indeed, so important are these minor pro- 

 ducts to the people of India, that they may be said 

 to give the finishing touches to the story of India's 

 productive resources. They not only enter into the 

 everyday domestic life of the people, bat, in many 

 instances give that charm to the handicrafts of 

 India which western skill has vainly tried to imitate. 

 Given the raw product which imparts the actual 

 tinctorial principle, and the European dyer fails to 

 produce the desired result because he has overlooked 

 the laborious and apparently meaningless combin- 

 ations which centuries have taught the Indian dyer 

 to employ. The use of soap in washing the fabric 

 in one case, and the employment of saponaceous 

 nuts for that purpose in another, have as much to 

 do with the beautiful and permanent colours pro- 

 duced as have the complex series of vegetable and 

 mineral mordants. 



Class ;III. — Fibres. 



At this late hour it would be useless to attempt 

 to deal with cotton, jute, silk, and wool. There is 

 so much to say under each of these subjects, that 

 it would take hours to deal with them satisfactorily. 

 I cannot, however, pass from the subject of cotton 

 without reminding you that the great cotton mills 

 of Bombay have already given promise that each 

 year the Indian mills will more and more meet the 

 Indian market, until they begin to materially affect 

 the immense import trade in British cotton goods. 

 The imports of cotton goods into India were last 

 year valued at £24,282,628, a large enough trade 

 to invite competition in every direction. The Brit- 

 ish manufacturer has not so mucli to fear, however, 

 from native enterprise, at least for some years to 

 come, as from British. Just as happened with the 

 jute trade of Dundee, Enchshmen with their capital 

 ^nd machinery may remove to India to manufactnre 



from Indian cotton the peculiar goods required by 

 the people of India. When this is done, there will 

 be a saving in time and of freight charges and agency. 

 The raw cotton, instead of bearing freight to Eng- 

 land, and the goods freight back again to India, 

 together with the charges for agencies and broker- 

 ages which these transactions necessitate, would be 

 produced and manufactured on the spot, and go 

 direct into consumption. I have endeavoured to show 

 that the difference between the cost of Indian and 

 English labour is not so great as is commonly sup- 

 posed. The advantage is, however, in favour of the 

 mill-owner in India, and the disadvantage against 

 the hand-loom weaver. To put this matter clearer, 

 the cheapness of Indian labour is not sufficient to 

 enable the hand-loom weaver to hold his own against 

 the power^loom manufacturers ; but Indian labour 

 is cheaper than English, and this cheapness is 

 another advantage which the mill-owner in India 

 has over the British manufacturer. 



There is no more hopeful future for India than 

 the opening out not of cotton mills only, but of 

 factories of every description. It is impossible for 

 India to stand still. Each year will see her becomng 

 more and more a manufacturing country. The 

 world has, however, grown tired of using cotton, 

 jute, silk, and wool. A distinct demand has arisen 

 for new fibres, and India possesses at least 300 fibres, 

 few of which have as yet received even a passing 

 consideration. At the late Colonial and Indian 

 Exhibition the largest and most complete displiy 

 of the fibres of India ever shown was placed b-fore 

 the public. These fibres attracted very considerable 

 attention, and experts from all parts of the world 

 were afforded every possible facility in examining 

 them. It will be enough to allude to three of these 

 fibres. 



1. Sida rhombifolia. — This beautiful silvery white 

 fibre is obtained from the above-named plant — a 

 member of the mallow family. Botanically Sida may 

 be said to be allied to jute, and the fibre it affords, 

 in many respects, resembles jute. It may be grown 

 on the same fields, and by the same cultivators. 

 It can therefore be produced at about the same 

 price, for the fibre may be separated from the sterna 

 by the same simple process, namely, by retting and 

 washing in water. The only factor that might 

 conduce to make it more expensive than jute is the 

 fact that, in its wild state, it does not attain the 

 same length of stem as the cultivated jute ; but fi>'ida 

 has not been cultivated as yet, and there is no 

 knowing but that it may even exceed jute in ita 

 yield of fibre per acre. It may be accepted, how- 

 ever, that Sida fibre is, like jute, a cheap fibre, 

 and one that might be produced with great ease in 

 immense quantities, the supply being as constant 

 as that of jute. Its claims for superiority over jute 

 are very considerable. The fibre is not half as thick 

 as jute, and it is of a much purer quality, and can 

 therefore be spun into finer yarns than jute, and 

 thus come into textile purposes which jute has 

 totally failed to reach. It can take colour with 

 great ease. In fact, Sida fibre has been much ad- 

 mired by all the manufacturers who have examined 

 it. It is now being experimented with on both flax 

 and jute machinery ; and I am hopeful that, as one 

 of the tangible outcomes of the late Exhibition, this 

 fibre will, in a very few years, come to hold a 

 distinct place amongst the fibres exported from India. 

 2. Bauhrnia Vahlii. — This extensive climber be'.ongs 

 to the family of the pea. It abounds throughout all 

 the warm lower mountainous tracts, being the most 

 abundant climber in the mountainous forest of the 

 great tableland of India, and crossing the Gangetic 

 basin, it occurs again in all the forests which skirt 

 the toot of the Himalaya. Mr. lioutledge, of Sun- 

 derland was, I believe, the first person who within 

 the past few years drew prominent attention to the 

 fibre derived from this plant. Long before even Mr. 

 Routledge's attention was directed to it, however, 

 the late Dr. Forbes Royle spoke highly of it under 

 its vernacular name, and specimens were exhibited 

 at the Great International Exhibition of 1851. The 

 fibre is universally used by the natives of India for 

 the purpose of ropemaking, and it stands higk in 



