February i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



655 



ALOE CULTIVATION. 

 The Bengal Government have forwarded iufonnu- 

 tioii regarding the production and preparation of fibre 

 from the Agave plant for the manufacture of paper, 

 asked by the ila(lr;is Government. It is as follows: — 

 The aloe (Agave Americana), a member of the natural 

 order Amaryllidecea, is a native of America, and has 

 become thorouMhly naturalized in countries bordering 

 on the Mediterranean in Africa and in many parts 

 of India. 



Growth from Seed.— It may be grown from seed 

 collected from the tall candelabra-like stems thrown 

 up by the plant after it has reached the age of from 

 live to seven years. The teed should be planted in a 

 nursery in rows, 18 inches apart, and the seeds 2 

 from each other. The best time to plant them (in 

 Hazaribagh) is during the rains ; they will then 

 rarely fail to germinate, and throw out leaves 

 three or four inches long by the end of the year. If, 

 however, they are put down in the dry season, they 

 ref|uire watering at least twice a week. The young 

 plants should be allowed to remain in the nursery till 

 the following rains when they may be transplanted to 

 the hedge or plantation, where they are intended to 

 grow. 



Growth from, .S'Aoo^s. — This is the best method, be- 

 cause there is no chance of fadure of germination ; 

 the labor of sowing is saved and nuich time is gained.* 

 Young plants from one to two years old should be 

 procured at the commencement of the rainy season, 

 and put down where they are intended to grow per- 

 manently. If for hedgerows, a ditch should be dug, 

 and the young plants are put up on the top of the 

 earth thrown up. They should not be closer than 

 two feet from each other. The holes in which they 

 are placed should lie eight inches in depth, and the 

 earth should be well pressed round them. No fui- 

 ther care is then required, and in about three 

 or four yeais the plants will grow quite close 

 together and make an excellent fence. If it is in- 

 tended to make an nloe plantation, the young shoots 

 should be planted in rows, ten feet apart, and 

 five or six feet should be allowed between each plant 

 in the rows. 



Soil. —A gravelly or l.aterite soil appears to be 

 best suited for the growth of the aloe plant. If 

 the plantation is made on high ground, it is 

 not necessary to make ridges to plant on, and the 

 phint i.s quite as proliOc of young shoots, for ex- 

 perience has sho^^n that they do e.jually well in 

 the flat ; but in low situatio'ns and hollows it is 

 necessary to make ridges 12 to 18 inches high, 

 the plant being very partial to a light dry soil, while 

 a damp and waterlogged soil is death to it. No 

 manure is required, and it grows on the most 

 stony ground, where apparently there is not 

 sufficient soil to support life in the plant. In 

 some places it ni.'.y be setn growing in the 

 clelts of the rocks. We have not found it necessary 

 to hoe or dig up the laud near the plants, and weeds, 

 sr.iss, etc. do not appear to interfere with its growth.' 

 From experiments which have been made here, the 

 use of the oxijresssed juice of the leaves, as manure, 

 has appeared to accelerate the growth of the plants. 



CutUnq the Lfave-i.—The leaves should nut be cut 

 until the aloe is six or sei-en years old, after it has 

 thrown up iia tall candelabra like stem ; some of these 

 grow to the height of IS or 20 feet ; they flower and 

 produce seeds ; before tliese are thrown up the fibre is 

 weak and not fit for manufacture. 



Protcrtwn of Plantation.— It is commonly supposed 



th.at cai le will nut, eat the al-.e plant on'ncoount of 



its sharp-pointed leaf aud aond sup. but our experience 



lias shown this lo be an error. .Several growing 



•The green aloe ( Fourcroya gigantea) does not send up shoots. 



plants havii had their leaves eaten, and very young 

 plants have been found cropped close to the ground. It 

 IS advisable therefore to keep off cattle by means of 

 a ditch (outside) and close aloe hedge round the 

 plantation. 



Value of Crop per ^cce.— After the plants are seven 

 or eight years old, one acre of land may be expected 

 to yield seven maunds of fibre per annum (it requires 

 as much as forty maunds of leaves to make one 

 maund of fibre). There is no doubt about this, as 

 repeated experiments have been made in this jail. 

 After the ground has been planted, no expenditure is 

 required, and the cost of planting depends greatly 

 on the distance from which the plants have to be 

 brought. 



Preparation of Fibre. — After the leaves are cut they 

 are put through a crushing machine, invented by my 

 jailor, Mr. Pimm, which breaks the hard bark of the 

 leaf and crushes out tlie juice. It has been found that a 

 great deal of manual labor is saved by this process. 

 The machine is not unlilie a sugar-crushing macliine. 

 This process should be carried on as near water as 

 possible. Then the crushed leaves are pounded on a 

 smooth stone by a wooden mallet until all the bark and 

 woody matter are remcfved. The fibre is then waslied 

 until the whole of the sap and dirt is cleared out 

 of it. It is dried in the sun and is then ready for use. 

 — Madras Mad. 



CINCHONA BARK AND BEER BREWING; 



AN ALKALOID'S MANUFACTORY IN 



CEYLON RECOMMENDED. 



( Communicated. ) 

 Too sanguine hopes are now being formed in Ceylon 

 as to the extent of the demand for cinchona bark, 

 which may be expected from the brewing trade through- 

 out the world. A few facts may make the matter 

 clearer. The quantity of hops used by lager beer 

 brewers is so small that they are under no tempta- 

 tion to adopt substitutes. Some of the best brewers 

 in Austria and Bohemia use only Z lb. to 8 bushels 

 of malt. English brewers use on an average 12 lb. 

 of hops to 8 bushels of malt. The demand is there- 

 fore much more likely to begin in England than on 

 the continent of Europe. Hops are generally sold in 

 England at Is per lb. They are now exceptionally 

 dear ; and doubtless, the brains of as keen and eu- 

 terprizing a class of men as there are in England 

 are now at work attempting to adapt the cinchona 

 bark, so as to make a workable hop substitute. Hop 

 substitutes are now at this moment an article of 

 commerce. Those I have seen analyzed were quassia 

 disguised, and there is no legislation which can in- 

 terfere with the sale of a pure drug, such as this is. 

 It is possible that our twig and branch bark may even- 

 tually come into demand for brewing purposes, if we 

 could supply it to compete with hops at Is per lb. 

 There is only a very small percentage of quinine in 

 it ; but it is rich in quinovic acid, the bitter cin- 

 chona principle, which is all that brewers would re- 

 quire, although it might be a question whether they 

 would not do better to buy the pure acid from the 

 manufacturers who throw it away in the process of 

 making quinine sulphate. 



The greatest possible relief to the bark producer, and 

 1 may say what would be an advantage to all suffer- 

 ing humanity, would be to establish a factory at the 

 Nanuoya railway station, for the extraction of the j)ure 

 alkaloids. They could then be packed in boxes — like 

 tea — and sent to England for sale to the quinine 

 manufacturer.^. One often hears that this is an im- 

 possibility in our climate. The most eminent analysts 



