“ 
28 Vegetable Materials for Cordage, Se. 
ed up for market. Dr. Buchanan gives a somewhat different mode 
of treating the plant to procure the fibre, which it is unnecessary to 
copy. (Travels, Vol. i. p. 227.) The apparatus commonly used 
in the United States to break and prepare hemp, would answer much 
better than any Indian mode. The twine made in India from the sun- 
plant, has long been an article of regular importation into the United 
States, and is much used when a strong ligature is not required. It 
is also extensively employed for fishing seines; for although it is 
weaker when dry, than the twine from flax, yet is stronger than it, 
when wet ; on this account, and being but half the price of flax twine, 
it is in great demand by the Delaware fishermen, as one of them re- 
cently informed me.* The twine-fibre is also the material from 
which the well known gunny bags are made, as I have long since 
stated,t and has been converted into strong demy, crown and car- 
tridge paper : a specimen of the first 1 received from the late Dr. 
Lettsom of London, in the year 1803,f and still possess it. The 
value of the sun-plant induced me to recommend the importation of 
the seeds for sowing in Louisiana, and I repeat the recommendation. 
The climate of Florida would be equally congenial to it, and from 
the greater ease with which its filamentous fibre is separated, than 
hemp, it would doubtless become a favorite with the cultivators. 
Paper makers will find it profitable to work up,ghe worn gunny bags. 
and old sun cordage, for coarse strong wrapping paper. The speci- 
men I have of the paper is much stronger than that made from straw.§ 
" Dr. Roxburgh gives the results of several hundred experiments, to show the — 
comparative strength of numerous vegetable fibres used in India for cordage and 
twine, under the following circumstances. 1. In a fresh state; 2. dry; 8. wet with 
Ww 
7 two Thirty two pounds more 
were required to break a hempen cord when wet, than to break another cord of the 
Bae, When dry. 
' Momestic Encyclopedia, article « Gunny bag,” 1803, 
t Taneatie Encyclopedia, article “* Paper,”’ 1803 
§ plant is largety work- 
n hackled “closely,” for twine or lines, it would not 
” thatis,long hemp. The rest was tow, and only fit 
