182 STUDIES IN INDIAN FIBRE PLANTS. 



Sann-\iem-p of commerce was taken up by the Calcutta Botanical 

 Gardens. Watt ' sums up the results of these experiments as fol- 

 lows : — ''Recent experiments conducted at the Royal Botanic 

 Gardens, Calcutta, support the belief that all the trade qualities 

 represent seasons of growth or methods of separation of fibre, and 

 not botanical forms." Further, Watt states : ' ' It would seem from 

 the Calcutta experiments that all the forms hitherto grown from 

 seed procured from such remote localities as Vizagapatam, Jubbul- 

 pore, Pillibhit, etc., have resulted in plants of varying stature, 

 size of flower, etc., but in no structural departures that could jus- 

 tify even varietal positions being assigned to them." Thus it 

 would appear proved that there is only one species of ^rmw-hemp 

 widely cultivated in India, namely, C. juncea, and that Royle's view 

 that Jubbulpore hemp is C. tenuifolia is incorrect. 



From the kharif season of 1906 to the present time many 

 sowings of >Saw.n-hemp from various parts of the Central Provinces, 

 including Jubbulpore, have been made by us at Piisa. Some of 

 these have been on a large scale either for green manuring, for fibre 

 or for seed. Observations have also been made in the Sann-\iemip 

 fields of the Central Provinces on the botanical composition of the 

 crop. 



The first sample of Jubbulpore hemp was sown in the kharif 

 of 1906, and single plants of this were selected for seed for the fol- 

 lowing year. In 1907 and 1908 the sowings were repeated, and from 

 the 1908 harvest single plants from each of the plots were selected 

 for carrying on the cultures in 1909. Thus Jubbulpore hemp 

 has been grown for four seasons, and from Piisa grown seed for 

 three seasons. No change has been observed in the behaviour of 

 the cultures— either in botanical characters, in habit of gro\vth, 

 length of stem or in earliness. Further, all the pure line cultures 

 have shown themselves to be identical in all respects, and Jubbul- 

 pore hemp seems to contain only one type. 



Consignments of Sann-liem^ seed were obtained from the Agri- 

 cultural Department of the Central Provinces in 1906 and again in 

 1909, and the produce of these was compared with the cultures of 



L Watt. 1. c. 



