BCEHMERIA 



RHEA CULTIVATION IN INDIA NIVEA 



Races 



with, thus possibly pointing to a cultivation of ?//**/</>*////, since sport. 



aliamloneil, or to ft miri^.ti inti lieiiiL' only a sport from nirt-ti. Re- 

 ntlv I have heanl from Tirhut that a sport had spontaneously appeared 

 in an experimental plantation, which was very hardy, although 

 fiparentlv an inferior tilnv-yielder. There seems little doubt that careful 

 inly and selection would clo much to improve the crop. But in no 

 e were plants grown in India seen to possess anything like the 

 .pparcnt luxuriance of a series of botanical specimens procured direct 



Weuchow in China. Some of the most vigorous plants collected vigorous pi&nt. 

 !>y me in India were found in North Lakhimpur, Assam, while the 

 ealthiest looking were those in the Ram Bagh plantation in Kangra 

 the survivals of the original six plants imported in 1863 by Mr. 

 Montgomery, India's pioneer rhea-planter. His widow, a very 

 (1 lady, was alive at the time of my visit, and I had the extreme 

 ea-ure of being conducted by her over the plantation, and was much 

 inated by the undying faith which she manifested in the ultimate Undying Faith 



of her husband s life-work. One plot, she told me, had neither slJ^ 1 *** 

 n transplanted nor manured for sixteen years, and yet the plants were 

 irly vigorous- looking. It was annually inundated and richly manured 

 y the rise of the river. When I inquired if any of the European tea- 

 anters in the district or Native zamindars had followed her example and 

 id out plots of land with rhea, Mrs. Montgomery replied that it was 

 rhaps fortunate for her that they had long since abandoned all 

 ought of rhea, because the produce of her little plantation was more Local demand. 

 an sufficient for the local demand. 



RHEA CULTIVATION IN INDIA. 



Future Prospects Indian Rhea cultivation and manufacture was dealt with Cultiva- 

 ry exhaustively in The Agricultural Ledger (1898, No. 15). That paper was the tion 

 suit of a special tour of inspection, conducted under orders of the Government 

 India, to each and every district where the plant was known to be cultivated 

 reputed to be found. With the details thus readily accessible, it may be the 

 lost useful course to make the present review amplify or correct the opinions 

 eady set forth, rather than to repeat in abstract the established facts. At 

 same time opportunity may be taken to answer the objections and difficulties 

 t have been raised without becoming controversial. My previous writings 

 ive been affirmed to discourage endeavour, and as that was not my intention 

 would explain that my attitude has proceeded from mature conviction that a 

 lea industry is not likely to be established in India until certain misleading 

 itements and misconceptions have been effectually removed. Of these I 

 uld mention the following : 



1. The affirmation repeatedly made, that rhea is a wild plant, found over Not Indigenous 

 ge portions of India, and that it has only to be cut in order to be turned into * India - 



aid. In my report of 1898 I have shown that this is not only an error but that 

 lea nowhere exists in India even as an escape from cultivation. That it is purely 

 Q exotic and is rapidly exterminated from land when neglected or abandoned, 

 till further, that the most valuable of the so-called wild-rheas (ban-rhea) of 

 8am is an entirely different plant, though one which affords a fibre for which 

 sre might be a market apart altogether from the possibility or not of organising 

 Indian rhea trade. 



2. The statement that it can be grown anywhere in India and with a purely n h Cultivation 

 IK niiinal amount of cultivation and care. Far from this being so, it is a plant that Essential - 

 requires a particular class of soil, a large supply of manure annually, and definite 



climatic conditions. It must thus receive high cultivation and be protected 

 from animals. If the price paid for the produce will not suffice to cover these 

 expenditures then the industry will not pay. 



3. The purport of my report may, therefore, be said to be that the experimental Unlikely 

 cultivation in India by Europeans has hitherto been in the most unlikely regions Re 8 ion8 - 

 and that the price offered for the produce has rendered essential methods and 



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