274 PREPARATION OF SUNN FIBRE. 
water. In August and September, from two to three days 
is generally sufficient. When the required effect has been 
attained, which will generally be known by the bark sepa- 
rating freely from the stalk, the people employed in the work 
stand in the water in which the plant has been steeped; each 
takes a handful thereof, which he breaks in one or more 
places, after having washed off any mud or filth; then grasps 
it by one end between both hands, and beats it against the 
surface of the water, which quickly removes the reed from 
the fibres ; when the parcel is turned, and the other end treated 
in the same manner. Care must be taken not to over-steep, 
as this much weakens the fibre. (Wisset and Roxburgh.) 
With respect to the proper time for steeping, and the period 
during which the stems should be steeped, great differences of 
opinion prevailed during the experiments at the beginning of 
the century. Mr. Fleming, disapproving of the native method 
of steeping the plants immediately after they were cut, and for , 
three or four days, recommended that the plants, after pulling, 
be first dried in the sun for two days ; after which, they should 
not be let remain in the water more than forty hours. Mr. 
Frushard objected, first, to the drying the article before watering; 
secondly, to the insufficiency of the time for watering ; and lastly, 
to the manner of separating the fibre from the reed after watering, 
The general practice, he observes, is to set the plant upright 
in the water, immersed about one third only from the bottom, 
for one day before the complete immersion, in order that the 
thicker may be immersed longer than the thinner parts. Of 
the natives one said, “to dry before steeping was doing to 
undo.”’ Another observed that it seemed to be “ wanted to 
make difficult what was easy.” Others exclaimed: “ You may 
imprison our persons; you may strike our necks; but never 
will we make Sunn according to the advertisement.” (v. 
Wisset, pp. 162, 195, and 202.) The whole forms an in- 
teresting commentary on attempts to improve native pro- 
cesses, before principles are thoroughly understood, or the 
superiority of European practices carefully established. (v. Table, 
p. 268.) 
At Commercolly, when the plants of Phool Sun have been 
pulled and tied in bundles, they are for a day or two kept . 
standing on their roots in an inch or two of water, which 
