TIMBER AND OTHER WOODS. 173 



At the time of the Crimean War various substi- 

 tutes were introduced for the Russian Linden Bast, so 

 largely used by gardeners and florists. Among these 

 were CUBA BAST, from Paritium elatum, G. Don., and 

 RAFFIA, the epidermis of the leaves of Raphia Ruffia, 

 Martius, a Palm of Madagascar, reaching us, via 

 Mauritius, in strips, J to f in. wide, and also from R. 

 tadigera, Martius, of Brazil, worth 40 or 50 a ton. 

 The former is now disused. 



Among materials used in the manufacture of 

 brushes, besides the ' ramenta,' or fibres from the 

 petioles of various Palms, to which allusion has 

 already been made, we may mention two : BRUSH- 

 GRASS or ' Chiendent,' the wiry rhizomes of Chryso- 

 pogon Gryllus, Trin., a native of the South of Europe ; 

 and BROOM-CORN, or * Brush/ the dried rachides of 

 the panicles of the species of Sorghum cultivated 

 at Schenectady, Montgomery, and elsewhere in the 

 United States, from 1843, especially by the Shaker 

 communities.* 



PART VII. TIMBER AND OTHER WOODS. 



THE greatly increased use of iron has by no means 

 diminished the demand for wood for purposes of 

 domestic architecture, though it has undoubtedly 

 done so in the case of that required for ship-building. 

 At the same time, the natural growth of population 

 and increase of houses and ordinary expansion of the 

 trades employing wood have caused a greatly in- 



* P. L. Simmonds, ' Common Products of the Vegetable 

 Kingdom ' (1854), and Spon's 'Encyc. Indust. Arts,' p. 543. 



