AGAVE 



Acclimatisation 



SISAL HEMP IN INDIA 



Action of the 

 Director of Kew. 



Three 



Government 



Consignments. 



Acclimatisation 

 in India. 



Official Action. 



Private 

 Consignments. 



Recent 

 Publications. 



plants "of the West Coast of India (1678), while Rumphius (Herb. Amb., 1750, v., 273, 

 pi. 94) should describe and figure a plant which is certainly agave and possibly 

 A. Cnntnia. It seems then to have been a very recent discovery, and it 

 probably reached India from America by the trade-route, viz the East Indian 

 Archipelago. 



Brief History of the Efforts to acclimatise Sisal Fibre in India. The several 

 Governments of the West Indies (more especially of the Bahamas) have 

 made strenuous efforts to participate in the sisal hemp trade, and the Blue 

 Books that have appeared from time to time contain much of great value. 

 It is perhaps safe to say of India that by far the most important contribution 

 to the existing knowledge of cultivated agaves has been the direct outcome 

 of the great personal interest taken by the former Director of the Royal 

 Gardens, Kew, Sir William Thisel ton-Dyer. Live plants of all the more highly 

 approved species and races of agave were procured and the more interesting of 

 these distributed to the Colonies and India. Reports have at the same time 

 been obtained from the indigenous habitats of the various species as also 

 from the regions of most successful production, and these have from time to 

 time been published in the Kew Bulletin. Still later the information thus 

 collected has most considerately been brought together and republished in one 

 volume (Bull., add. ser., 1898), thus forming a convenient book of reference 

 that gives full particulars of the results attained within recent times. The 

 Director of Kew, at the suggestion of Sir George King, and subsequently of 

 the Revenue and Agricultural Department of the Government of India, procured 

 and forwarded to India three consignments of live plants of sisal hemp. The 

 first reached India on July 9, 1890, but the plants were found to be dead 

 on arrival at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sibpur, Calcutta. The second consign- 

 ment of 1,000 plants came to hand on October 29, 1891, and it was then found 

 that 643 were alive. The third consignment of 4,900 plants reached Sibpur on 

 October 14, 1892, and of these 2,984 were alive. Prior to these consignments, 

 however, the Botanic Gardens, Saharanpur, had received by post in 1886, direct 

 from Florida, a few live suckers. One of these had been successfully grown and 

 had yielded many young plants, of which a limited distribution was made. Re- 

 cently a report was called for as to the success attained with the 1892 consignment 

 of plants. The preparation of that report was entrusted to Lt.-Col. D. Prain, 

 at that time Curator of the Calcutta Herbarium. The recipients of the plants 

 issvied from the Royal Botanic Gardens were invited to furnish information on 

 eleven separate subjects of inquiry, such as the nature of soil on which the 

 plants had been grown ; distance planted apart ; percentage of deaths ; the 

 date on which they afforded suckers ; date at which the plants were cut ; the 

 length of fibre obtained ; the method adopted in preparation of fibre, etc., etc. 

 It may be here explained that the Agri. -Horticultural Society of India 

 having received a supply of plants from the Superintendent of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, issued these to the members of that Society, 

 and the answers furnished to the series of questions were published in 

 the Journal (1898, xi., n.s., 864-8). The replies received by Prain were 

 incorporated in his report. This was republished in The Agricultural Ledger 

 (1900, No. 6), and may therefore be regarded as a most important practical 

 contribution to our knowledge of the sisal hemp fibre in India. It will be there 

 found that Prain concludes a letter to the Hon. Secretary of the Agri.- 

 Horticultural Society of Madras as follows : "I may add, for your informa- 

 tion, that since preparing my Note I have learned that two private importations 

 from Florida of Sisal Hemp plants, one in the Tirhut (indigo) area, and one in 

 Assam (tea) area, have taken place, the parties concerned having said nothing 

 about these importations, and all that I am able to say regarding them is 

 that the efforts of the various Indian Governments, detailed in my note on Sisal 

 plus those of your Society and of the Government of Madras are, when put 

 together, insignificant as compared with either of those private ventures." Of 

 Dauracherre, in South Sylhet (the Assam instance doubtless in the above 

 quotation), it is said that 10,000 plants were imported from Florida in 1894. 

 In 1901 most of the original stock were poling and each yielding 2,000 to 3,000 

 bulbils. Mr. J. Cameron in his address to the United Planters' Association of 

 South India in 1900 stated that the Mysore Government had imported over 4,000 

 plants direct from Florida about seven years previous. These had taken kindly 

 to the climate and now afforded material for an extensive propagation. 



Carrying the Indian records to more recent dates, two exceedingly important 



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