UPPEE INDIA. 61 



their houses. Even a thatched shed requires a ridge-pole, 

 and bamboos or some substitute for them for the framework 

 of the thatch. The trees best suited for planting, and which 

 besides improving the land would be of value as timber, are 

 the babool, sissoo or sheesham, the saras mango, mulberry, 

 neern, and ber. One of the most common substitutes for 

 bamboos in the frames of thatches Is the stalk of the castor- 

 oil plant, and this plant requires some consideration. It will 

 grow almost anywhere, and is in many ways of great economic 

 value. Besides the stalks being used as above stated, they are 

 also used in flat-roofed houses as battens, the oil is largely 

 used as a lubricant by the railways, and now that gas is made 

 from oil- cake, the refuse cake, which is useless or poisonous as 

 a cattle-food, could be used for gas manufacture, as also could 

 the nut itself before the oil was extracted from it. The leaves 

 are to some extent gathered and given to cattle as food, 

 although said not to be good for them in large quantities, 

 still, wherever any castor-oil plants are accessible to cattle, we 

 find all the leaves are eafcen off in the hot weather. One 

 advantage of this plant is its rapid growth, plants attaining a 

 height of ten or fifteen feet by the month of April from seed 

 sown the previous June or July. This plant will live some 

 ten or more years, and propagates itself by the seeds which 

 fall from it ; once sown it only requires to be protected from 

 the depredations of cattle. Advantage should be taken of the 

 rapid growth of this plant to use it as a nurse to trees of more 

 delicate habit. The mango, for instance, for the first few 

 years after being planted out, is usually protected by being 

 tied up in long grass during the cold weather to protect it 

 from frost. Were the castor-oil plant thickly studded over the 

 ground between the young mango plants they would be as 

 effectually protected from frost as they now are, and in the 

 spring their leaves would not have the pale sickly hue the 



