308 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



not made by the pound is made by the shilling. In 

 a word, I may say that every habitual estimate, and 

 every long or permanent or important contract depends 

 on the pound." But Professor Airy is a scientific man ; 

 this therefore may be deemed what some call " all 

 theory." Let us see what was said by Mr. Thomas 

 Hankey, a Director of the Bank of England. Ho 

 may be presumed to be a practical man, and, for any 

 thing we know to the contrary, he may be scientific 

 too. What said he ? " We must stick," he said, " to 

 the pound." There is a very practical sound, cer- 

 tainly, in that expression, " We must stick to the 

 pound," he said : " it is engrafted on all our notions. 

 It is imjjossible to oust it." Then, again, we have a 

 scientific and a practical man. Sir John Herschel, the 

 late Master of the Mint: "The pound," he said, '"is 

 not only an English, but it is a commercial, unit all 

 over the world. The jwund stei'Unc/ should be the 

 unit, beyond a doubt." " I would retain the pound 

 sterling," said Professor De Morgan, "both for our 

 own association, and because it is so well known all over 

 the world." 



" There are many reasons," said Mr. Francis Ben- 

 noch, " for retaining our unit of value, or pound, us it 



is now. The sovereign, or pound, is our standard mea- 

 sure of value : all our debt is reckoned in pounds ster- 

 ling, and all salaries and estimates of incomes are based 

 upon that unit. It has, besides, this advantage — that 

 it expresses a great sum in a few figures." 



The principle herein advocated is that which appears 

 to have guided the framers of the bill now before Par- 

 liament for removing the anomalies which exist in the 

 various modes which pi'evail in different districts of 

 selling corn by weight and by measure, and not only 

 that, but of selling different quantities, whether of 

 weight or of measure, under the same name. That bill 

 makes the use of the imperial bushel compulsory. On 

 that question, though it is somewhat foreign to our 

 present subject, it may be remarked that the advantages 

 of continuing the sale of corn by measure instead of by 

 weight were forcibly put by a correspondent in a recent 

 number. The bushel of corn will vary for each descrip- 

 tion of grain under different conditions. It is for the 

 farmer to ascertain that weight before he goes to market 

 with a sample, while the miller must, from habitual 

 practice, be able to judge very closely the weight of 

 a bushel, both from its appearance and the manner in 

 which it handles. 



THE FIBROUS HEMPS AND GRASSES OF THE EAST INDIES. 



Sir, — My attention having been drawn to a very important 

 and interesting leading article in your journal, which dilates 

 largely upon the great advantages which might, with proper 

 care bestowed upon them, be derived from the various fibrous 

 vegetable productions of the East Indies, I would beg to state 

 to you, for the satisfaction of such of your readers as may prove 

 more or less interested in the flax trade, that for many years 

 past, during a long and uninterrupted residence in India, I 

 devoted a large portion of my labour and time to this all- 

 engrossing subject and I believe I may safely a«sert, that I 

 was one among the first of the Anglo-Indian community who 

 made an autopsical investigation into the subject of the fibrous 

 productions of Hindostan. 



It is now thirty-seven years ago, when I was a resident at 

 the 'station at Cuttarth, in the Province of Balasore, that I 

 commenced growing the bourbom, or Sea Island cotton. This 

 flocculent material being longer in the fibre than that of the 

 growth of the natural cotton plant of Bengal, held out an en- 

 couraging prospect to those who were adventurous enough to 

 speculate in the undertaking. The seeds prospered, the shrubs 

 flourished, and after three years they fructified ; the pods 

 filled well, and the crops augured happily. But to my disap- 

 pointment and vexation, just at the critical juncture, when the 

 harvest was about to be insured, the monsoons (periodical 

 rains), at the beginning of the month of May, set steadily in, 

 and rotted the whole of the contents of my hopes. The cotton 

 became rusty and black, and although I made every after- 

 effort, and adopted every plan I could devise to restore it, in 

 part, to its pristine purity, all my anxious labours totally 

 failed, and I gave up every after-idea of pursuing a course of 

 cultivation in an article which was likely, in nine instances out 

 of ten, to break down under the best exertions I could exer- 

 cise to bring it to a state of perfection, or to render it, what I 

 aimed at, a marketable production. 



Several friends of mine, about that period, who felt equally 

 sanguine with myself in cultivating the Sea Island cotton 

 plant successfully in India, wholly failed in their experiments, 

 and ultimately abandoned the visionary project, as idle and 

 unprofitable. In a subsequent period I turned my attention to 

 the various hemps and grasses peculiar or indigenous to Ben- 

 gal. The first, and most general in use, I discovered was the 

 kiar, or the fibrous filaments contained in the husks or corti- 

 ceous coating of the common cocoa-nut, the fruit of the palm* 

 This material I discovered was manufactured into strings, 

 cordage, ropes, and ships' hawsers ; the natives finding, upon 

 experience, that it wa?, in its specific gravity, considerably 

 lighter than common Russian or English hemp, or even the 

 sun flax, and when applied to maritime purposes was more 

 durable in its nature, and admitted vessels to ride at anchor, 

 in boisterous weather, more easily than when the same were 

 held down by iron chains or hempen cables. This hemp was 

 also used in the manufacture of door mats, ruggets, and other 

 general purposes. 



This species of palm is one of the most useful and service- 

 able trees growing throughout India. The husk of the nut 

 yields the hiar above adverted to. The nut itself produces a 

 cooling and refreshing beverage to the thirsty Indian ; the 

 kernel, when exposed to solar heat, yields a large proportion of 

 pure oil; whilst the wood, when subjected to the operation of 

 the shipwright and artizan, is converted into mossoolah boats, 

 dinghees, catamarans, and other maritime and architectural 

 purposes. Of late years this hemp has been largely encou- 

 raged throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain, and 

 has in its various and distinct characters and properties super- 

 seded hemp, rush, hair, and other materials in the different 

 uses to which they were through a long course of years cus- 

 tomarily applied. In the year 1810, an European adventurer 

 of the name of Bell, then residing in the Black Town, Madras, 



