AGAVE 



Cultivation 

 Bengal 



Col. E. Cobb's 

 Report. 



Season for 

 Cutting. 



Bombay. 



Assured 

 Position. 



Soil to Fibre. 



Fibre. 



History, Central 



India. 



N.-W. Prov. 



Bombay. 



C.-Prov. 



Washing. 



THE ALOE FIBRE PLANT 



In Bengal. The late Mr. N. G. Mukerji (Handbook Ind. Agri., 

 1901, 325-8) furnishes an abstract of the currently accepted views on 

 Agave cultivation in Bengal. In the Dictionary will also be found 

 a detailed report on the cultivation of this plant by Col. K. Cobb 

 (at that time Superintendent of the Hazaribagh Jail), and since recent 

 information regarding Bengal does not materially alter the conclusions 

 there advanced, the original article should be consulted. 



It may in fact be said that the chief exception recent investigation would 

 suggest to Col. Cobb's report, concerns the season when the fibre reaches ma- 

 turity. Most writers affirm that when the pole has arisen from the middle of 

 the rosette of leaves, the fibre is practically useless. It becomes too hard and 

 brittle formanufacturing purposes. The fibre which has fetched the best prices 

 would appear to have been obtained from fully grown leaves, but from plants 

 that have shown no signs of producing the " candelabra-like " inflorescence. 

 The plant grown at Hazaribagh seems to have been mainly A. Catitaia, but 

 the inferior samples of Bengal fibre have evidently been chiefly procured from 

 .1. i>j- Cn* (the A. inrida of some writers). 



In Bombay. The Bombay Aloe Fibre has recently attained an 

 assured position in commerce and is being pushed with much success. 

 It is chiefly obtained from A. Contain, and apparently to some 

 extent also from A. Wight) i and more recently from A. sisalana 

 and Fnrcrcea gif/antea. 



On the heavy clay soils of Bengal and Assam, as also some portions 

 of the Central Provinces and of Madras, A. Vera Cruz might be 

 regarded as a fairly abundant species, but on sandy loams and stony 

 laterite soils of some parts of Bengal, the United Provinces, Sind, Raj- 

 putana, Central India and Bombay, A. Cantata becomes the most char- 

 acteristic form, and is indeed met with in a state of more or less complete 

 acclimatisation. [Of. Madras Mail, Oct. 1904.] In the Panjab its place is 

 taken by A. WightH, of which Stewart makes the very observation 

 regarding its prevalence in that province which Roxburgh made of 

 A. Cantala in Bengal, viz. that it might be regarded as indigenous. 



One of the earliest descriptions of this fibre, as far as India is concerned, will 

 be found in the Journal of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India for 1854 

 (viii., 148 et seq.) where Mr. A. R. C. Hamilton, then Resident at Indore, 

 furnished a sample which was examined by Capt. A. Thomson at his rope-factory 

 at Calcutta and found equal to the best Russian hemp. Capt. Thomson adds 

 that a considerable quantity of a fibre exactly similar had lately been imported 

 from the Malabar Coast and that he had had some made into rope which very 

 much resembled Manila rope. Mr. Blackburn forwarded from Agra about the 

 same time samples of fibre and rope made from " the Common Aloe," and Dr. 

 Falconer identified the plant from which these had been prepared as A. Cantata 

 a plant with which he had been familiar as common at Saharanpur. 



In 1889 the Bombay Government forwarded to the Secretary of State for 

 India a report that had been drawn up by the Director of Land Records and 

 Agriculture on " the aloe fibre shipped under the name of ' hemp ' from Bombay." 

 This fibre, it is there stated, comes chiefly from the Bombay Karnatak and the 

 Central Provinces. " The plant grows wild but nowhere in abundance, nor is 

 it anywhere cultivated specially for extracting fibre." " In the Bombay Karnatak 

 it is the chief hedge plant along railway lines. For fencing it is planted one to 

 three feet apart according to the quality of the soil." The Director then describes 

 the crude method adopted to separate the fibre, namely by burying the leaves 

 in running water or amongst the sand near streams where water percolates. 

 When sufficiently decomposed the leaves are taken out and washed clean of the 

 pulp by beating. 



Sir D. Morris, at that time Assistant Director of Kew, identified the 

 specimens of plants that accompanied the Bombay report as confirming the 

 fact that the " Bombay aloe fibre" was prepared from the leaves of A. vivipara. 

 It would now seem that it was A. vivipara, Dalz. & Gibs, (non Linn), i.e. A. 

 Cantala, Roxb., according to Drummond and Praia. Sir Daniel, after suggesting 



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