498 ORDER URTICE.E; FIG, BANYAN, HEMP, HOPS. 



relished by the negroes. The timber of this tree is liglit, and is 

 used for building houses and boats ; and the inner bark is beaten 

 into a kind of cloth. Nearly allied to the Bread-fruit is the 

 Mulberry, which is well known to be the source of all our silken 

 fabrics, as upon its leaves alone can Silk- Worms be profitably 

 reared. The Paper-Mulberry affords the material of paper to the 

 Chinese and Japanese, the inner bark being beaten into a pulp, 

 and then pressed into sheets ; and its juice is so tenacious as to 

 be useful as a glue. The Fig is an important article of food in 

 many Eastern Countries ; and it is highly nutritious as well as 

 agreeable. A very large quantity is exported from these to 

 various parts of Europe ; as much as 1000 tons are annually 

 brought to Great Britain alone, chiefly from Turkey and the 

 Levant. Nearly allied to the Fig is the celebrated Banyan-tree 

 of India (. 152) ; and also the famous Upas, which has been 

 reputed to be the most poisonous species of the whole Vegetable 

 kingdom, causing the death of animals which even approached it, 

 or of birds which fly over it. It is quite true that its juice acts 

 as an extremely violent poison, when inserted into a wound ; but 

 the other effects attributed to the tree are not founded in fact. 

 The Trumpet- wood of tropical climates affords the means of con- 

 structing canoes, furniture, &c. ; and its fibrous parts are used as 

 cordage ; the same portion of the Hemp -plant of northern regions, 

 supplies the material, not only of our rope and twine, but of many 

 of our coarser woven fabrics, such as sail-cloth. In India, hemp 

 is cultivated for the sake of the properties of its leaves, which 

 have an intoxicating power, resembling that of opium. This valu- 

 able plant will grow in almost any climate and any soil ; the 

 country in which it is most cultivated, however, is Russia, whence 

 a large quantity is annually imported into Britain. The amount 

 of hemp of foreign growth, employed in the country in 1839, was 

 nearly one million hundred-weight. The fibres are separated and 

 prepared very much in the manner of those of Flax. It is 

 curious that the Hemp-plant destroys almost every other plant 

 that grows in its neighbourhood ; so that it has been sometimes 

 employed to clear from weeds a tract, which is afterwards to be 

 used for some other kind of cultivation. The chief product of 



