INDIGOFERA 



Burma 



THE INDIGO PLANT 



D.E.P., 

 iv., 415-6. 



Burma. 

 Areas. 



Seasons 

 and Crops. 



Different 

 Species. 



to remain till the next heavy showers, when the seed is sown in rows. In 

 about a month weeding commences. On dry lands the crop is entirely 

 dependent on rainfall. The first cutting is taken three or four months 

 after sowing, and a second and third at intervals of three months after the 

 first. After the third cutting, the plant is allowed to seed. 



Wet Cultivation. Wet cultivation is also carried on in the neighbourhood of tanks or 

 wells. Near wells with a certain supply of water, cultivation is commenced 

 in March or April. If the soil is loose, the seed is sown without any previous 

 ploughing ; otherwise, in the vicinity of tanks, the land is watered, ploughed, 

 and smoothed by a roller. It is then manured, watered again, and the 

 seed sown when the land has dried. After germination, the crop is regu- 

 larly watered at intervals varying from a week to twenty days. Weeding 

 commences a month after sowing, and the first cutting takes place in three 

 or four months, the second three months later. \Cf. Shortt, Man. Ind. Agri., 

 1885, 98-136 ; Mem. on Prog. Madras Pres., 1893, 69-71 ; Cox, Man. 

 North Arcot List., 1895, i., 273-4.] 



BURMA AND ASSAM. Area and Production. Indigo is cultivated 

 to a very limited extent in Burma. In 1904-5 there were 424 acres in 

 Upper and 58 in Lower Burma. In Upper Burma cultivation is confined 

 to the districts of Pakokku, Lower and Upper Chindwin and Sagaing, 

 and in Lower Burma to Thayetmyo. The gravest suspicion, however, 

 should be entertained in accepting the published figures of area as being 

 Iiidif/ofera. The description given by Mr. H. G. A. Leveson, in a 

 note on the dyes of the Southern Shan States, at all events, leaves little 

 or no doubt that much of the indigo of that country is derived from 

 StrobilantJies. In Chindwin there are reported to be two crops, the 

 wet- and the dry-weather. The wet-weather crop is sown in June and 

 collected in July and August; the dry is sown in October and col- 

 lected in December and January. An indigo plant is also said to 

 flourish at high elevations in the Shan States. It is remarked that 

 when cultivated in the lower valleys it is generally under the shade 

 of trees, and when grown on the hills, plots of ground are selected 

 at the bottom of steep valleys. Brackish soil is regarded as the most 

 suitable, and the ground is not manured. It is not grown from seed, but 

 at the beginning of the rains the shrub is cut to the ground, the lower 

 part of the stalk thrown away, and the upper part with the young leaves 

 planted. Two or three pluckings are considered a fair average yield, 

 though a well-grown plant may afford as many as five. Most of these 

 statements, it may be inferred, denote Strobilanthes. 



Assam. Turning now to Assam, the cultivation of indigo may be said to be 



practically non-existent. The greater part of the indigo dye of the province 

 is the produce of Strobilanthes flaccid ifolius, and not of Indiyofera. 

 In many respects Assam and Upper Burma show a closer approximation 

 to the conditions of South and Central China than to those of India. 

 Accordingly Assam, in the matter of this particular indigo-yielding plant, 

 may be spoken of as the most western portion of the area of Strolri- 

 lanthes flaccidifolius, a plant that is from there diffused east and north 

 throughout the greater part of China and becomes one of the most impor- 

 tant sources of the dye in that vast empire. [Of. Leveson, Dyes and Dyeing 

 in Southern Shan States, 1896, 2-5 ; Duncan, Dyes and Dyeing in Assam, 

 1896, 28, 29 ; Parlett, Rept. Settl. Oper. Sagaing Dist., 1903, 15.] 



Manures. Manures. Generally speaking the only manure given in indigo cultiva- 



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