ON THE CULTIVATION OF KHEEA. 349 



fibres, with wool, silk, alpaca, or shoddy, unless the patentee 

 grant a license." 



Having explained the nature of my inventions and discoveries 

 to soften and prepare the fibres of India to Colonel Abbott, 

 whose knowledge of such production arose from twenty-six 

 years' residence in that great empire, I was favoured by my 

 friend with the following written document for publication. 

 COLONEL ABBOTT'S REPORT. 



"The remarkable preparation of the rheea fibre by Mr. 

 J. Hill Dickson's process of patent machines and liquid ; the 

 proof of its adaptability to various textile fabrics by experi- 

 ments, both when used alone, or mixed with silk, alpaca, or 

 wool, receiving the dye in the most perfect manner ; and the 

 fact that the statements made by the late Dr. J. Forbes Royle 

 (formerly superintendent of the Hon. East India Company's 

 Botanic Garden at Saharumpore), as to the strength, fineness, 

 and value of the fibrous plants of India, have been proved in 

 Bradford, by Mr. Dickson's skill in preparing rheea and other 

 fibres for the trade of Yorkshire; these, and the following 

 practical results, are reasons why the cultivation and collection 

 of rheea, and similar wild plants, should be immediately 

 proceeded with. 



" At a discussion that took place in the rooms of the 

 Society of Arts, on the 9th of May, 1860, on Indian fibres, 

 Thomas Bazley, Esq., M.P., in the chair, present, Colonel 

 Sykes, M.P., Mr. Hadfield, M.P., and a large and influential 

 audience, The tables were covered with Mr. Dickson's raw 

 material, prepared fine as silk, and combed on silk machinery 

 and yarns spun from it from 70's to 180's, and forty varieties 

 of cloth* made from like yarns were exhibited, similar in 



* This cloth was made from rheea fibre, prepared by Dickson's patents and 

 supplied by him to Mr. William Whittaker, then of the firm of Messrs. 

 Milligan, Forbes and Co., Bradford, who had previously agreed to give the 

 patentee, Dickson, 10,000 for his English patents as soon as he got his 

 experiments in manufacturing the fibre into cloth fully carried out, and 

 Dickson had the right to work his machines in a factory at Waterfall House, 

 Lower Tooting, but not to dispose of any of the fibres in England. 



