34 



fiting our forests, but also enhancing the revenue of 

 India from a hitherto waste product. At the same 

 time we should accomplish the different objects for 

 which the people at present find it necessary to 

 resort to, the extermination of the grasses by fire. 

 I venture to hope that the figures I have given are 

 sufficiently plain to induce the Government to direct 

 that a consignment of Sur* be imported to England. 

 The prospect is very encouraging for those who 

 choose to embark in new undertakings for the supply 

 of commercial fibres. The plant grows wild on the 

 banks of rivers ; there is every facility for cheap 

 exports; and if the simple machine which I have 

 recommended for Calotropis fibre be substituted for 

 manual labour the value of the product would be 

 materially increased. 



45. Another branch of forest conservancy, of no 

 f e crtpts a S! less importance than the suppression of 



moval of which ~ , IP n ,1 



is an important fires, is the removal from trees of the 



branch of forest 



conservancy. gigantic creeper s which twine round and 

 ultimately kill them. Now, many of the creepers 

 yield most excellent fibre, that of the Bauhinia varie- 

 vSgita. gata, for example, which overruns our forests, 

 having been pronounced by paper-makers equal to 

 the fibre of Adansonia digitata, which is known to 

 afford a very superior material for paper. So again 

 and te B. supfrb? with the Butea frondosa and B. superba, 

 which grow in equal abundance, and from which 

 strong ropes are made ; and there are many others, 



* Saccharum munja. Culms straight, eight to twelve feet, smooth ; 

 leaves channelled, long, linear, white-nerved, hispid at the base inside ; 

 panicles large, oblong, spreading ; ramifications verticelled ; flowers 

 hermaphrodite ; corolla two-valved. 



