ROPES AND CORDAGE 



Fibrous 

 Materials. 



Chief Indian 

 Fibrous Plants. 



Hope 

 Manu- 

 facture. 



Sisal. 

 Manila. 



Jute. 

 Flax. 



String. 



Cotton Eope. 



Munj. 



repairing cattle-yokes. And many such, plants are often utilised in the 

 systematic preparation of the ropes offered for sale at the village shops 

 or market-stalls. More rarely they are specially cultivated, in small plots 

 or strips through the fields, as hedges on the borders of fields or by the 

 water-courses and creeks. It might in perfect fairness be said that 

 many of the discoveries regarding the fibrous resources of India were 

 the outcome of the demand for serviceable ropes to be substituted in 

 the British and Indian navies for Russian hemp. Roxburgh, the great 

 pioneer in economic botany, wrote a special report of his experiments 

 and discoveries (see Cannabis, pp. 253-4 ; also Linum, p. 722). This was 

 followed by many other publications (Royle, Fibrous Plants, 1855, 19-26 ; 

 Baden-Powell, PI. Prod., 1868, 476-7 ; Gee, Monog. Fibrous Manuf., 

 11-3). These and such-like works give numerous details of the indigenous 

 fibres and the local methods pursued in their utilisation. The reader 

 should, therefore, consult the articles under the following rope and cordage 

 plants : 



Abroma (p. 1). 



Abutilon (p. 2). 



Agave (pp. 35, 43). 



Aquilaria Agallocha (p. 74). 



Boehmeria (pp. 146, 152, 159). 



Calotropis (p. 207). 



Cannabis (p. 255). 



Cocos (Coir) (p. 356). 



Corchorus (p. 411). 



Crotalaria (p. 435). 



Daphne (pp. 486-7). 



Debregeasia (pp. 160-1). 



Girardinia (p. 161). 



Gossypium (Cotton) (p. 622). 



Grewia (p. 624). 



The Indian rope manufacturers who prepare cordage and rope by 

 European machinery employ a comparatively small number of these 

 fibres. They obtain local supplies of coir, jute, saw-hemp, cotton, and 

 Deccan-hemp, but as a rule import agave and sisal, hemp (Russian), and 

 Manila. India has recently begun to grow Ay fire on a large scale, and 

 the local production, if it has not already checked the imports of that 

 fibre, may shortly be expected to do so. The production of Manila hemp 

 cannot be said to have been quite so successful. Recently attention has 

 been drawn to the possibility of using linseed stems (flax), in the pro- 

 duction of cheap fibre to be used up in the growing demand for cordage 

 as " binders." One of the jute-mills of Calcutta made the attempt 

 some few years ago to contest the large Indian market for cheap and 

 neat European-made string, by producing various qualities of cordage, 

 done up in balls after the familiar fashion and in various colours. 

 Jute rope is also, to some extent, made at the roperies, and cotton 

 ropes have for long been used by the tent-makers as being more ser- 

 viceable for that purpose than any other class of ropes. The other rope 

 fibres of the above enumeration are almost exclusively employed by the 

 people of India locally, and of these perhaps few are more important 

 or more extensively employed, especially in North India, than munj, 

 and in South India than coir. For fishing-lines and extra strong and 



924 



Hibiscus (p. 630). 

 Laportea (p. 162). 

 Linum (pp. 722-5). 

 Malachra (p. 755). 

 Maoutia (p. 163). 

 Marsdenia (p. 774). 

 Musa (pp. 789-90). 

 Phoenix (p. 884). 

 Saccharum (pp. 929-30). 

 Sarcochlamys (p. 163). 

 Sesbania (p. 988). 

 Sida (p. 991). 

 Urtica (p. 163). 

 Villebrunea (pp. 164-8). 



