THE FIBRE OF ENDOGENS. 29 
From these peculiarities other names are given to the above 
divisions, but which it is needless for our purposes to notice. 
PREPARATION OF THE FIBRE OF ENDOGENS. | 
Though both the stem and the leaves abound in fibre, it is 
from the latter chiefly that this is separated for practical 
purposes. The fibres of some plants are not separated from 
the rest of the vegetable matter, but the stems and leaves 
are simply dried and twisted, as in the case of some Grasses, 
Sedges, Rushes, and even the leaves of Palms. The leaves of 
others are simply beaten with a stone on a flat board or on 
another stone, and afterwards the rest of the vegetable mat- 
ter washed away. Occasionally such fleshy leaves have been 
passed between rollers, as those of a sugar-mill, and with the 
consequent saving of both time and labour, also with a diminu- 
tion of cost. Very frequently, however, these leaves are 
steeped in water until fermentation takes place, when the labour 
of separating the fibre is much diminished. But this often 
takes place with great loss of strength as well as of the beautiful 
white colour, for which most of these endogenous fibres are 
particularly distinguished. 
Dr. Hunter, who has paid much attention to the separation 
of this class of fibres, has observed that the ordinary modes of 
separating the fibres of plants in India, that is, steeping them 
in water, are exceedingly faulty. Every day’s steeping of a 
vegetable substance in water takes from its strength, and com- 
municates a tinge to the fibres which can only be removed by 
the subsequent application of some chemical agent, such as 
lime, the alkalies or chlorine, which in some cases, no doubt, 
diminishes their strength. He observes that in most parts of 
India the fermentation which takes place in plants heaped 
together or steeped in water proceeds so rapidly, that it is 
extremely difficult to prevent the accession of putrefactive 
decomposition. This, he says, commences in succulent plants, 
when immersed in water, in twenty or twenty-two hours, 
during warm weather. The sooner, therefore, that the decom- 
posing parts of a plant—that is, the mucilaginous, saccharine, 
and other constituents of the sap and pulp—are removed, the 
whiter are the fibres, and they retain more of their original 
