ARACHIS 

 HYPOGjEA 



Ground-nut 



Fibre. 



Taggar 

 Wood. 



D.E.P., 

 i., 282-7. 

 Ground- 

 nut. 



Introduced into 

 India. 



Appearance in 

 Europe. 



Indian Trade. 



Early Shipments. 



Chief 

 Publications. 



THE EARTH OR PEA NUT 



of the gods in the temple, consider it impure to have their mantras written on 

 mill-made paper and, therefore, retain the custom of writing their sacred books 

 on the prepared bark of the sachi tree." Loureiro says that the common paper 

 of the Cochin-Chinese is made of the bark of A.. nniiiic<-fnnin. Besides forming 

 the leaves of books the bark is sometimes used as covers for binding books. The 

 Nagas and other hill tribes prepare strips of the bark by which they hang their 

 baskets on the forehead. The FIBRE is employed for making ropes, but it is 

 not very lasting. 



Taggar Wood, according to Holmes, is a dark-brown timber exported from 

 Madagascar to Zanzibar, and thence to Bombay, but Colebrook so long ago as 

 1851 spoke of it as a wood sold in Bengal to the unwary as a substitute for agar. 

 Dick, in a letter to Roxburgh, gave tuggur as the Bengali name for a wood found 

 in the hills near Sylhet, a geographical reference that might suggest E,n-<-tf<-<i fin 

 A(ftiii<>< IHI . a plant known by various Indian names such as thilla, tilai, and tayaw 

 kayaw in Burma, and tola kiriya in Ceylon. So far as Roxburgh was aware, 

 however, it did not afford any form of agar-wood. Mason speaks of it as Blinding 

 Aloes, and by others it is called the Tiger's Milk Tree. 



ARACHIS HYPOG^EA, Linn. ; Fl Br. Ind., ii., 161 ; Cooke, 

 II Pres. Bomb., i., 408; De Candolle, Orig. Cult. Plants (Engl. ed.), 411 ; 

 Mollison, Textbook Ind. Agri., iii., 102 ; Agri. Ledg., 1893, No. 15; 1899, 

 No. 12, 147 ; 1900, No. 1 ; Burkill, Kew Bull, 1901, 175-200 ; LEGU- 

 MINOS.E. The Ground-nut, Earth-nut, Pea-nut, Monkey-nut, Pindar, 

 Katjang, Pistache de terre, Manila-nut, Chinese-nut, and in the 

 vernaculars of India (which for the most part are translations of one 

 or other of the names mentioned), mung-phali, bhui-mung, bhui-singh, 

 bhui-chana, villdyoti-(bildti) mung, chini-badam, Manila-kotai, veru sangalu, 

 myeleh, mibe, etc. There are thus no Indian names that would imply an 

 ancient knowledge of the plant. 



This is undoubtedly, therefore, another of the very long list of plants 

 introduced into India in comparatively recent times. There would seem 

 little room for doubt that though nowadays extensively cultivated in all 

 tropical countries it is originally a native of Brazil. But there would 

 appear to have been successive and possibly independent efforts to intro- 

 duce it into India. It may have come from China to Bengal (hence the 

 name Chini-badam) ; from Manila to South India (Manila-kotai), and 

 from Africa and very possibly direct from Brazil as well, to Western India. 



History. It does not seem necessary to quote all the passages that support 

 these conclusions. Perhaps one of the earliest direct references to this plant, as 

 grown in India, occurs in Buchanan-Hamil ton's Travels through Mysore, etc., 

 published originally in 1800. In the Report of South Arcot (1850-1) mention is 

 made of 4,000 acres being under the crop. The nut made its appearance in 

 Europe as a commercial product about the year 1840. The Indian modern 

 trade may be said to date from a Resolution of the Government of India pub- 

 lished in November 1877, and a subsequent Resolution of August 1879. In 

 consequence of the replies to the latter, J. E. O'Conor wrote a report on The 

 Cultivation of Ground-nut in India (Journ. Agri.-Hort. Soc. Ind., 1879, n.s., vi., 

 87-98). After detailing the facts ascertained regarding the extent of cultivation 

 and other useful and interesting particulars, he drew attention tersely to the 

 present position and future prospects of the Indian foreign trade in the nut. 

 The exports were in 1878-9, 25,472 cwt., " or little more than 1 per cent, of 

 the imports into France. The question now is, whether India should be content 

 to leave France to draw all her supplies of this valuable food-stuff and com- 

 mercial product from Africa or whether she should not enter actively into 

 competition for at any rate a substantial portion of the trade " (I.e. 97). 



Space cannot be afforded in this work to deal very fully with the 

 subject of the ground-nut. It may, however, be useful to enumerate, in 

 sequence of date, some of the more important publications in addition to 

 those mentioned in the Dictionary. [Cf. Dymock, Mat. Med. Western Ind., 

 1884, 674 ; Church, Food-Grains of India, 1886, 127 ; Pharmacog. Ind., 1890, 



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