322 CHEMICAL DISCOVERY AND INVENTION 



and 350 ; Vol. I, 1913, pp. 8-9), that in 1884-5 the land devoted 

 to this crop amounted to 897,917 acres. This gradually increased 

 down to 1896-7 when the area under cultivation was 1,583,808 

 acres, and the weight of indigo produced was 168,673 cwts. or 

 8433 tons. The value for " fine Bengal " indigo between the 

 years 1812 and 1833 varied from 5s. 6d. to 15s. per pound. The 

 value in 1888 averaged 3s. 9d. per pound, and in 1908 it had 

 come down to 2s. 6d. to 2s. 9d. per pound. But synthetic 

 indigo costing at the same time even less the price of the 

 natural product has been further reduced. The rapidity with 

 which the cultivation of indigo in India has fallen off in recent 

 years is shown by the following table of figures representing the 

 acreage from 1900 down to the most recent estimate available. 



ACREAGE OF INDIGO IN BRITISH INDIA 

 Year. Acreage. 



1900-01 977,349 



1901-02 792,179 



1902-03 653,801 



1903-04 712,049 



1904-05 510,289 



1905-06 . . . . . . 401,138 



1906-07 448,594 



1907-08 405,905 



1908-09 ..... 286,354 



1909-10 295,706 



1910-11 282,757 



1911-12 274,925 



1912-13 . . 214,500 



The yield in 1909-10 was estimated to be 40,040 cwts. or 2002 

 tons. 



Whether the cultivation of indigo has yet reached its nadir 

 remains to be seen. There is naturally some conflict of state- 

 ment as to the relative merits of the natural and synthetic dye- 

 stuffs from the point of view of the dyer. On the one hand, such 

 statements as the following extracted from a paper in the Kew 

 Bulletin (No. 8, 1910, p. 285) have been made : 



" There appears to be no doubt as to the superiority of the 

 natural over the artificial product for dyeing purposes, and this 

 is not where the fault lies ; but it does seem very problematical 



