286 WUCKOO NAR, OR BROWN HEMP OF TRAVANCORE, 
heads of the fibre were sent, and labelled Wuckoo and Wucknoo. 
nar, or fibre, from Travancore. The appearance of this fibre is 
totally different from any other which comes from India; as it 
is in the state as if prepared for spinning into thread, and must 
have been combed or heckled. The fibres are brownish in colour, 
about 3 to 4 feet in length, clean, and shining, not so fine as 
Flax, but still resembling some of the coarser kinds. A very 
competent judge informed the Author that it might be sold 
for the purposes of Flax, or as a kind of Flax, and was worth 
£35 a ton. So, some specimens sent to Dundee were valued 
at the same sum, and it was said could be used for the same 
purposes as Flax, though rather too dry. 
As the Wuckoo nar was so highly thought of, and the Author 
was unable to form any opinion respecting the plant which 
produced it, he requested his friend, Dr. Wight, so well ac- 
quainted with the Botany of the Peninsula, to ascertain the 
botanical name of the Wuckoo plant. The more so, as Tra- 
vancore, with Cochin as a harbour which large ships can enter, 
is a favorable locality for the export of an article which seems 
a very desirable object of commerce. Dr. Wight having. 
written to friends in the locality to ascertain this point, 
was surprised on hearing, as was the Author on being 
informed, that the Wuckoo plant of Travancore was nothing 
but the Taag of the Western ghauts, and which further north 
yields the so well-known Brown Hemp of Bombay. The 
Author may mention as a curious confirmation of the result 
obtained, that specimens of the Brown Hemp, passed through 
Mr. Dickson’s machine, are exactly like the fibres of the 
Wuckoo nar, as sent from Travancore. 
The whole subject forms a striking confirmation of the 
importance of what the Author has frequently endeavoured to 
impress upon planters and experimentalists, that is, the effects of 
climate and of physical agents on the products of plants, As 
these will be found to be quite as important as seed from par-. 
ticular localities, or the adoption of methods of culture which 
may be suitable to one and not to another locality where it is 
attempted to introduce them. 
Besides Bengal, Madras, and the West of India, Sunn, that 
is, Crotalaria juncea, is also extensively cultivated in North- 
