THE INDIAN SAGO-PALM 



Kittul or 

 Salopa Fibre. 



Brushes and 

 Brooms. 



Uses. 



CARYOTA 



URENS 



Sago and Sugar 



authors from Varro (116 B.C.) downwards. The chief commercial value 

 of the palm lies in the fibrous cords or fibro-vascular bundles found naked 

 at the base of the leaf-sheath and within the petioles, flowering stalks and 

 even the stems as well. These constitute the strong kittul fibre of Ceylon 

 and the salopa of Orissa, a fibre which also comes from Burma and Bombay. 

 It is made into ropes, brushes, brooms, baskets, etc. As a brush fibre it 

 was described in the Treasury of Botany (1866) and has been shipped from 

 Ceylon to England since about 1860. Five or more strands, fastened 

 together by special machinery, have moreover been found to make an 

 excellent substitute for whalebone in corsets. Since the discovery that 

 kittul fibre was not only equal but even superior to, because less brittle 

 than, the Bahia piassava (the fibre of Attalea funifera), several 

 brush factories in India, it is believed, have begun to use it instead 

 of bristles in hair-brushes, clothes-brushes, horse-brushes, etc. [Cf. 

 Hooper, Kept. Labor. Ind. Mm., 1903-4, 29.] In this they are following 

 the lead of European makers : Hannan (Text. Fibres Comm., 1902, 155), 

 for example, says that kittul is now in much request in Europe for 

 brush-making and that some of the finest qualities have been adopted 

 as substitutes for bristles. Jackson (Comm. Bot. XlXth Cent., 1890, 142) 

 observes that as much as forty (now fifty) years ago kittul fibre was ex- 

 ported to England for admixture with horse-hair (may it not have been 

 Chamcerops humilis ?). In the brush trade it is steeped in linseed-oil 

 and thus made so pliable that it can be used either with or without 

 bristles in making soft, long-handled brooms which are extremely durable 

 and can be sold at about a third the price of ordinary hair-brooms. 

 Dodge (Useful Fibre Plants of the World, 112-3) says it is also made 

 up into machine brushes for polishing linen and cotton yarns, for cleaning 

 scutched flax, brushing velvets, etc. Both in India and Ceylon fishing- 

 lines are made from kittul fibre (Drury, U. Prov. Ind.) and strong wiry 

 ropes capable of holding wild elephants are constructed of the fibre, 

 while in Australia the leaves apparently are regarded as a good paper 

 material. Lastly, the woolly substance or scurf scraped from the leaf- 

 stalks is used in Burma for caulking boats. The quotations in London 

 on April 20, 1901, were for long quality, 8%d. to 9d. per Ib. ; for No. 1, 

 6d. to Id. ; No. 2, 2d. to 3Jd. ; and No. 3, Id ; Ide & Christie (Monthly 

 Circ., Oct. 15, 1907) give the following returns of present date : Long, 

 Sd. to 9fd. ; No. 1, 6d. to 7%d. ; No. 2, 2d. to 3%d. ; No. 3, Id. to 1^. 

 Mr. J. C. Willis tells us (Admin. Repts. Bot. Gard.) that the exports from 

 Ceylon have never exceeded those returned for the year 1898, viz. 

 3,794 cwt. The exports from India are unimportant. 



The Sago and Sugar. Besides its fibres, Can^yota yields from 

 the.interior of the stem a sago which is mentioned by Koxburgh (1832), by 

 Kobinson (Desc. Ace. Assam, 1841, 56) and by other writers as almost equal 

 in quality to the best sago of commerce. As a matter of fact it would seem 

 to be an inferior article, though quite wholesome ( Yearbook of Pharmacy, 

 1903, 328). On the Malabar Coast and elsewhere it is made into bread or 

 gruel and thus constitutes an important article of food with the poorer 

 classes. The " cabbage " or terminal bud is edible, like that of most 

 palms. Commelinus (Rheede, Hort. Mai, i., 16, n.) remarks that, ac- 

 cording to authors, the pulp of the fruit is bitter and irritates the tongue 

 a circumstance which doubtless suggested the specific name urens. 

 The fruit is certainly very pungent and insipid, but I cannot recollect 



286 



Fishing Lines 

 and Bopes. 



Price. 



Sago : 

 Sugar. 



Pood. 



Cabbage. 



