4 PECULIARITIES OF CULTURE IN INDIA. 
might be expected, for the fibrous product of plants is only 
the woody fibre in a younger state, and may he considered as 
wood in a separated form, while wood may be described as 
consisting chiefly of amalgamated fibres. Exposure to light 
and air is well known to be essential to the formation of good 
wood, by favouring the proper secretions of the tree and the 
thickening of the woody fibres. But this necessarily dimi- 
nishes their flexibility, and therefore is not suited to plants 
which are grown on account of these fibres. Hence, to obviate 
this undue exposure of the plants to light and air, and to 
favour their shooting upwards, and to prevent the formation 
of lateral branches, the seeds of both the hemp and the flax 
plant are sown thick in Europe; and the plants grown closer 
as the fibre is required to be finer. But the Flax plant in 
India being cultivated for its seed, is, on the contrary, either 
sown in lines on the outside of and as an edging to, or broad- 
cast and intermixed with, other crops. The seeds are collected 
when they are fully ripe, or when the other crops have been 
harvested. The effect is, that the plants are checked in their 
upward growth, and attain a height of only a foot or of 
eighteen inches, have numerous lateral branches, and are 
loaded with seed-vessels ; each seed containing a larger propor- 
tion of oil than is found in those grown in Europe; but 
the fibre is short, brittle, and unfitted for the general purposes 
of flax. 
It does not appear that the Indian climate is the best 
suited to the production of good flax and hemp; for it is one of 
comparatively short seasons, of great alternations of dryness 
and of moisture, as well as of considerable extremes of tempe- 
rature. But the Creator of all has enriched the country with a 
variety of plants which do flourish well even within these 
extremes. The Indian mode of cultivation is better suited for 
the secretion of the resin in one case and of oil in the other, 
than for the production of strong and flexible fibre in either 
plant. For the production of this, both plants require a com- 
paratively slow growth in a moderately moist and temperate 
climate. This it would be unreasonable to expect to find, 
either in the comparatively arid tracts of north-west India, or 
in the moist and warm plains of Bengal. In fact, if it were 
not that the autumnal and winter temperature of these districts 
