DYES AND OTHER EXTRACTS. 169 



CHAPTER v.— UTILIZATION OF MINOR PRODUCE 

 OBTAINED FROM FELLED WOOD. 



The stem, besides yielding major produce, viz., timber, firewood, 

 and wood for charcoal, furnishes many other useful products that 

 are extensively used. They may be grouped under the heads of 

 (1) dyes and other extracts, (2) oils and the various products of 

 distillation, and (3) starch. 



Section I. — Dyes and othee extracts. 



The heart-wood of every species owes its colour to a substance or 

 substances which can be used in dyeing ; but these substances 

 must be capable of being extracted with ease and in sufficient 

 abundance to have a commercial value. In spite of the very slight 

 knowledge possessed by our dyers of the various modes of mani- 

 pulating dyeing substances, a great many dye woods are already 

 used by them as well as by the general population. The Jack wood, 

 Plecospermum spinosum, and various others yield a yellow dye. 

 Pterocarpus santalmus gives a very pretty salmon-pink dye, Ccesal- 

 pinia Sappan and Adenanthera pavonina a red dye, Cynometra 

 ramijlora a purple dye, and so on. But the most common colour 

 yielded is some shade of brown. The easiest way to obtain the 

 dye from wood that has been sawn is simply to boil the saw-dust. 

 But for work on a commercial scale, the wood, before being boiled, 

 would be most quickly reduced to thin shavings on a lathe. 



The two best known and most widely used wood-extracts are the 

 cutch and katha of commerce, the former being used principally 

 as a dye and exported to Europe, the latter beingj chewed with 

 betel and the betel leaf. From Upper Burma alone the annual 

 exports, a few years before the annexation, amounted to 150,000 

 maunds, valued at Rs. 11,00,000. Since then, owing to restricted 

 cuttings in consequence of reckless utilization during the late 

 dynasty, they have diminished 50 per cent, in quantity and about 

 40 per cent, in vnlue. In Lower Burma, in two Divisions alone 

 (viz., Tharawaddy and Prome), the annual revenue from cutch is 

 not less than half a lakh of rupees. In India proper, the manufac- 

 ture is on a much smaller scale ; nevertheless the quantity carried 

 bj rail and river in 1888-89 was over 33,000 maunds, valued at 



