Jabbalpur 

 Hemp. 



Wild Forms. 



Recent 



Experiment*. 



Indigenous 



Silence of 

 European 

 Writers. 



CROTALARIA 



EARLY DESCRIPTIONS JUNCEA 



History 



Indian Hemp, False Hemp, Brown Hemp, Bombay or Salsetto H.-mp, Travancore 

 Max, .lalihalpur Hemp. etc. The names DIM-. MI, H.-nip or Ambari Hemp are 

 M.met nne-, though incorrect ly, given to this fibre ; they usually denote f*fc< 



,< ,i until nun. 



Though t'oimd throughout tho plains ,,( India and Ceylon under cultivation Distribution. 

 (either an a souroo of fibre or as a special crop to renovate the soil or to be used 

 milch-cows), it has not very authoritatively been recorded as met 

 ith in a wild condition. * . ! HI/O/MI . Roxb., however, by modern botanists, 

 i reduced to < . j>Miff<f. Linn. His plant, Roxburgh says, was indigenous 

 Coromandol. It has since been identified as the special form of *'. Juiirrn 

 iwn in Jabbalpur (and thus apparently affords a recognisable trade quality 

 ), but it nowhore has, as yet, been recorded as wild or even as cultivated 

 iv whore between these widely remote localities. It is thus more than probable 

 t either the determination of *'. trnni/bHn as the special Jabbalpur hemp 

 icorrect, or that Roxburgh was in error in regarding it as wild in Coromandel. 

 it he t he Jabbalpur hemp plant, it would seem, from the economic standpoint, 

 l- that it should be kept distinct from ordinary *'. .)!. Kurz says of 

 f< that in Burma it grows " like wild, along the banks of the larger rivers." 

 There are numerous purely indigenous species of fvo/ /! mot with all over 

 and Burma, many of which are weeds of cultivation, tolerated because of 

 sir value as green manure. In this connection it may, however, be added that 

 experiments conducted at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, support 

 lief that all the trade qualities represent seasons of growth or methods of 

 ration of fibre, and not botanical forms. Thus botanical and historic evidence 

 icur in the acceptance of this plant as indigenous to India, even although it 

 not strictly speaking been found truly wild. 



But it is very remarkable that hardly any of the early European travellers 

 id botanists in India describe this fibre. Rheede gives an admirable picture 

 the plant but says nothing of its fibre. Rumphius challenges the accuracy of 

 statement that a fibre is prepared from the bark, and supposes that the 

 jns who say so had confused this with his Ganja Sativa the " Capsular 

 archorus," as Sir William Jones calls that plant. On the other hand, the 

 .in-i-Akbari (1590, Gladwin, transl.) distinguishes two fibre plants one with 

 jwers like the cotton and the other with yellow flowers. The former was doubt- 

 'fi.s-t-n.s-. and the latter can hardly have been anything else but <vofiri. 

 the Taleef Shereef (Playfair, transl., 1833, 98) we learn that the bark of 

 is used as hemp. Ironside (Phil. Trans., 1774 (ed. 1809), xiii., 506) gives 

 t full description of the cultivation and then adds, " From the bark are made all 

 kinds of rope, packing cloths, nets, etc., and from these when old most of the 

 siper in this country is prepared." Trew mentions that it was introduced into 

 Physic Gardens of Chelsea in 1744. Hove (Tours in Gujarat, etc., 1787, 93) 

 iys that he saw, near Surat, *vf /< growing to a height of ten feet. Roxburgh 

 Trails. Soc. Arts, I.e.) gives full particulars of his experiments with both Coro- 

 idel and Bengal son-hemp. Wissett (Treatise on Hemp, 1808) collected to- 

 sther the available information from all parts of the world regarding the better- 

 lown forms of hemp. Naturally son takes a prominent position in his work, 

 fact nothing new of importance has been discovered and next to no progress 

 ie in the utilisation of this fibre, during the century that has come and gone 

 ice Wissett extolled its merits. But it is significant that in his great 

 jrk only an incidental allusion is made to the jute plant. Jute was at that 

 ie viewed as a fibre of little or no importance. Buchanan-Hamilton gives 

 eresting particulars of son-hemp cultivation in Dinajpur (Stat. Ace. Dinaj., 

 -1), and by Symes (Ace. Emb. to Ava, ii., 233) mention is made of 

 imilton's having observed it to be " growing spontaneously." Macpherson 

 list. Europ. Comm., 1812, 241, 391) gives the history of the efforts made by 

 East India Company to have flan-hemp introduced into England as a sub- 

 titute for Russian hemp. The Company procured their supplies from Salsette, 

 Bombay, and sold these for less than they cost and even gave consignments 

 ray for nothing, until they had expended 45,000 in the effort to introduce the 

 jre into European commerce. Yates (Text. Antiq., 1843, 318 et aeq.), while 

 discussing the Spanish broom or Spartum (*/m-f<tm .j,, >,,,,,,,,) of the ancients, 

 contrasts it with the son-hemp of India. Linnaeus explains (Mant. PI., 1771, 

 439) that he gave the name Jnnrea (or rushy */ im-in) to this plant because of 

 its resemblance to the Nparttum Jtmreum. Clusius was of opinion that there 

 were two spot-tons known to the ancients the one the modern Spanish broom, 



431 



First 



Detailed 



Description. 



Roxburgh's 

 Experiments. 



Wild in 

 Burma. 



Salsette Hemp. 



East India 

 Company's 



KtTurts. 



Spartum. 



