THE LINSEED PLANT 



Adulteration 

 Standardised. 



Purity not 

 Demanded. 



Official 

 Returns 



LINUM 



USITATISSI MU M 

 Linseed 



the adulteration or admixture of linseed and says that it is usually pur- 

 chased in Bombay on a basis of 94 per cent, purity, and elsewhere on a 

 basis of 96. It is, therefore, hardly to the interest of the shipper to get 

 absolutely pure seed, since nothing more is paid for it in Europe than that 

 adulterated to the extent named. Voelcker adds that an attempt was 

 made some years ago to buy upon the basis of " absolute purity," but this 

 proved a dead letter, since there was no demand in the home market for 

 pure linseed. 



During the past fifteen years the crop has fluctuated very greatly. 

 Thus in 1891-2 it was 3,211,000 acres pure and 545,000 acres mixed ; in 

 1895-6 it was 2,954,093 pure and 560,000 mixed ; in 1899-1900, 1,648,903 

 pure and 409,000 mixed ; in 1903-4, 3,609,079 pure and 592,000 mixed ; 

 in 1904-5, 3,747,400 pure and 647,000 mixed ; in 1905-6, 2,700,400 pure 

 and 567,000 mixed, while the Final Memorandum issued by the Com- 

 mercial Intelligence Department estimates the area for 1906-7 as 

 3,028,200 pure and , 633,000 mixed. Analysing the returns for the year 

 1905-6, by way of illustration of the distribution of production, we 

 learn that Assam had 55,709 ; Eastern Bengal 103,000 ; Bengal 726,500 ; 

 Agra 185,034; Oudh 60,880; Bombay 139,623; Central Provinces 

 812,068 ; Berar 96,703 acres, the balance on the total area being in 

 Madras, Panjab, Kajputana and Central India, and lastly Burma. The 

 highest of all the unimportant areas is usually Madras, which in 1905-6 

 had 21,099 acres ; and Sind the lowest, with 3 acres under the crop. 



PRODUCTION. It may now be useful to devote a few pages to a 

 series of notes on the linseed of the chief areas of Indian production : 



1. BENGAL (including Eastern Bengal). As already indicated, Bengal, of all the 

 provinces of India, has usually the largest extent of land under this crop, though 

 in the year specially dealt with it had less than the Central Provinces. The 

 districts of Bengal that had in 1905-6 the greatest acreage of linseed were 

 Darbhanga, 138,500 ; Gaya, 80,000 ; Nadia, 49,000 ; Saran, 72,000 ; Champarun, 

 66,300 ; Muzaffarpur, 41,200 ; Jessore, 29,900 ; Murshidabad, 29,100 ; Bardwan, 

 22,500 ; Noakhali, 22,000 ; and Backerganj, 20,000 acres. It is thus a crop that 

 may be spoken of as produced most abundantly within the indigo districts. At 

 all events it is mainly grown, so far as Bengal is concerned, in Tirhut and Bihar. 

 Mukerji (Handbook Ind Agri., 272-4) says it is believed to love well-drained heavy, 

 loamy soils, especially if rich in lime, such as those often under mustard or til crops. 

 It requires more or less the same soil, in fact, as wheat and gram. The land 

 should be prepared in September, and thorough and deep ploughing is desirable. 

 Before the close of the monsoons the sowings are usually completed. The seed 

 rate has been given as 8 to 12 Ib. to the acre. If sown late, irrigation may be 

 necessary, but when the plant is in flower rainfall is injurious. The crop is 

 harvested by the end of February or the beginning of March and the seed ex- 

 tracted by flailing. Six to eight maunds of seed (say 500 to 700 Ib.) is the average 

 produce per acre. The straw is useless as fodder, and indeed it is even said 

 that green plants eaten by cattle have been known to prove fatal. The seed 

 is held to yield one-fourth of its weight of oil. The cake is regarded more 

 valuable as food for milch cows than either rai or tori cakes, though the butter is 

 said to be softer than that obtained where mustard- or cotton-seed cake has been 

 given to the cows. Basu speaks of the straw of linseed being reduced to bhusa 

 and given to cattle in mixtures with the bhusa of wheat, barley, gram, lentils, 

 etc. It is considered as heating, and therefore seldom given to animals by itself. 

 The crop is sometimes barren and thus becomes a dead loss to the cultivators. 



Trade in Bengal (see p. 728). In the Annual Report on the Maritime Trade 

 of Bengal ( 1 904-5, 24) it is stated that ' ' the quantity shipped rose by 26 -7 per cent, 

 and was the highest on record, the year 1898-9 coming next, but the value ad- 

 vanced by 6 -6 per cent. only. In May, 1903, the price of linseed in Calcutta was 

 Rs. 5-0-6 per maund : while in May, 1904, it was Rs. 3-10. The world's pro- 

 duction in the year 1904 was enormous and in April the home price fell to 29. per 

 quarter, a figure not approached, ejnce July, 1896, when the price was 280, 6d, 



726 



Chief Areas. 



Unimportant 

 Areas. 



Production. 



Bengal. 



Indigo 

 Districts. 



Houghing. 



Seed Bate. 



Seed. 



Yield of Oil. 



Fodder. 



Trade. 



Price. 



