RICINUS 



COMMUNIS 



Varieties 



OU of the 

 West Indies. 



Indian Imports 



India exports 

 the Oil. 



Cultiva- 

 tion. 



Varieties and 

 Eaces. 



Two Groups 

 of Forms. 



Edible Forms. 



Bengal. 



Seasons. 

 Soils. 



Eeaping. 

 Crop. 



Assam. 



Grown to feed 



Silkworms. 



Varieties. 



THE CASTOR-OIL PLANT 



refers to it as both cultivated and uncultivated in Cochin-China, while Rumphius 

 says it grows in Java, being raised in large fields which thus afford much oil. 

 It would appear that the medicinal oil of the West Indies was imported into 

 India for fully half a century prior to any mention of the Indian-grown oil-seed 

 or oil being recorded as exported. In 1761 Lewis spoke of the Palma Christi 

 seeds being rarely found in the English drug-shops and the oil scarcely known. 

 In 1764 Peter Canvane, a physician in the West Indies, published a Dissertation, 

 on the Oleum Palmce Christi, etc., giving Oleum Ricini, in which he strongly 

 recommended its use as a gentle purgative. It was shortly after 1788 admitted 

 into the London Pharmacopoeia. Woodville (Med. Bot., 1790 (ed. 1832), iii., 

 624-8) speaks of the oil as having lately come into frequent use. It was at 

 the time obtained from Jamaica. In 1804 India imported 20,207 Ib. of the 

 oil, and as late as 1808 took 3,503 Ib. Gradually, however, it seems to have been 

 discovered that India itself produced the medicinal oil, and the exports in 1813 

 were valued at 610, and in 1819 at 7,102. Fifty years later, the exports of 

 the oil had expanded from 2,000 to 100,000 gallons. No mention is made of the 

 traffic in the seed, but it is thus evident that the European demand for this oil-seed 

 and oil from India is quite modern. [Cf. Joret, Lea PL dans UAntiq., etc. f 

 1904, ii., 270.] 



CULTIVATION. 



VARIETIES AND CULTIVATED RACES. Botanical writers allude to the 

 multiplicity of forms that exist as proof of the antiquity of cultivation. Miiller 

 (in De Candolle, Prod., xv., pt. ii., 1016-21) forms sixteen varieties or rather 

 cultivated states that merge from the one to the other, but which are often; 

 agricultural forms of considerable value. Roughly, these have been grouped by 

 most writers under two great types (a) a tall bush or small tree of perennial 

 growth, usually planted as a hedge or in lines through the fields where it affords 

 desirable shade to other and more valuable crops. This gives a large seed with 

 an abundance of inferior oil. (b) The other, an annual plant sometimes grown 

 as a pure crop, though more frequently in mixed cultivation. It gives a small 

 seed, the better qualities of which by an expensive and more careful process of 

 expression afford the superior qualities of the oil of commerce, some of the finer 

 grades of which constitute the medicinal oil of European pharmacy. The 

 former,, from its being extensively used in India for illuminating purposes, is 

 often called " Lamp Oil," but it also finds a place as a valued lubricant. 



Frequent mention is made, by writers on this subject, of a third important 

 grade, namely a castor which by special selection has come to yield a seed that 

 contains no poisonous principle, the oil of which is edible. Smith (Contr. Mat. 

 Med. China, 1871, 55), for example, says that a " species or variety of JZfiiv 

 is said to have smooth fruit and to be innocuous." In Ahmadabad I collected 

 (in a garden) a perfectly smooth-fruited form, the leaves of which were suffused 

 with a white farina that gave them a remarkable glaucous appearance. I was 

 told the oil of that plant could be used in cookery. 



Bengal. Mukerji (Handbook 2nd. Agri., 1901, 276-86) says that cultivation 

 is chiefly in the Patna and Bhagalpur Division. There are three forms grown 

 a small, a medium, and a large-sized plant. The first and last are sown in Muy 

 to July and grown with some bhadoi crop. The seed is ripe in January and 

 February. The winter variety is sown in September and gathered in March- 

 April. This yields a larger proportion of oil than the bhadoi crop. On dearah 

 lands the cost of cultivation is little and the yield large. Red soils situated at 

 the foot of the hills are specially chosen, but it is an exhausting crop, and should 

 not be grown more frequently than once every five or six years. It is never 

 irrigated, all the cultivation deemed necessary being a ploughing between the 

 rows of plants to keep the weeds down. Picking usually takes place from the 

 seventh to ninth month after sowing. When grown with other crops the yield of 

 cleaned seed per acre is about 250 Ib., and when grown by itself, 500 to 900 Ib. 

 It is generally held that the large-seeded varieties yield the best ordinary lubrica- 

 ting and lighting oils, and that the small-seeded afford the finer grades, especially 

 those used for medicinal purposes. [Cf. Banerjei, Agri. Cuttack, 1893, 88-9 ; 

 Roy, Crops of Beng., 1906, 84-6.] 



Assam. Basu, writing on the possibility of castor being grown in con- 

 junction with indigo and tea, says that in the Assam valley it is never grown 

 for its seed, but always for the leaf, which is used for feeding the eri silkworm 

 (p. 1005) . There are two varieties of the plant (a) the era and (6) the Bengali era. 

 The former is indigenous and the latter introduced a taller and stouter plant. 



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