6G Brigade-Surgeon J. E. T. Aitchison's Notes on Products 



roots, and some say leaves also, by drying in a hot sand-bath, 

 and grinding is prepared a ll(jur, which when mixed with hot 

 water yields a most tenacious vegetable glue, with which 

 the natives make great vessels for holding oil and clarified 

 butter. The cobblers employ it in preference to animal glue 

 in their work, and I believe it might be introduced into 

 England as a substance likely to prove useful in the arts. 

 In India vessels made of it might be appreciated by the 

 Hindu community if the raw material were directly placed 

 into their hands, to enable them to construct their own 

 vessels. In Persia these vessels are thus made, the tenacious 

 gum is painted over a hollow earthen mould that has a 

 single layer of some coarse country cloth covering it ; on 

 this cloth layer after layer of the glue is painted until a 

 sufficiency is reached ; this forms when dry a parchment-like 

 skin, the mould is then broken up and removed through the 

 mouth of the jar, and then usually the jar is sewed into a 

 goat's hair sack. With ordinary moisture, or the amount of 

 moisture likely to affect the jar through the goat's hair 

 covering, no harm is likely to accrue, but if the jar is 

 allowed to stand in water for days, it will in time dissolve 

 or melt away. The flour made by grinding the dried roots 

 or leaves is called sarlsh-i-narm, and the vessels daha-i-sarish. 

 The leaves of this species are not employed as a vegetable ; in 

 some cases where they were so used by our camp followers 

 they suffered terribly for their ignorance. 



Eremurus aurantiacus, Baker. Liliace^. 



Sich, slch. The young leaves of this species, and probably 

 those of Eremurus Olg/E, are eaten as a vegetable, in a cooked 

 state, by the natives both in this district as well as in the Kuram 

 Valley of Afghanistan. I and my friends found it a really 

 good and well-flavoured vegetable, well worth the attention of 

 the market gardener in England. As a vegetable the plant 

 would grow well, inasmuch as the leaves are cut over, with- 

 out injuring, the growing axis of the plant, which would last 

 for several years. I doubt, unless in exceptional localities, 

 whether it would produce ripe seed in this country. 



Ergot of Rye — sla-khdk. 



Ilye, Secale cereale, is the commonest weed in wheat 



