NOTES ON THE AGRICULTURE, 



BOTANY AND THE ZOOLOGY 



OF CHINA. 



B. W. SKYORTZOW. 



I. — Dye-plants and Dye-stuffs of Manchuria. 1 



Manchuria is a country extremely rich in agricultural 

 products. It is not only famous for its cereals, but also in 

 technical plants, especially the soja beans, flax and dye 

 plants. At the present time the production of beans in- 

 creases with each year, as also does the sowing and export 

 from the country of materials for weaving. With regard to 

 dye plants each year sees a decrease in the production of this 

 economic product. Its decline arises from the appearance 

 in the market of the cheaper and more abundant foreign 

 aniline dyes. It is disappearing in spite of the fact that 

 formerly Manchuria was celebrated for its production of a 

 blue dye, closely resembling the true indigo (Indigofera 

 tinctoria L.). This cultivation of dye plants in Manchuria 

 has followed the fate of all similar productions when the 

 cheap chemically manufactured article appeared on the 

 market. The same took place in the West of Europe, where 

 the cultivation of madder (Bubia tinctoria L.), a former very 

 important commercial industry has also died out. The de- 

 cline in the industry of organic dye is to be observed now in 

 China, where in ancient times one madder was cultivated for 

 red dye and another — I satis tinctoria L. for its blue, a third 

 for saffron (Carthamus tinctoria L.) red, and finally, in South 

 China the true indigo, from which is got the best blue dye. 



One cannot depict too vividly the unfortunate effect 

 which the war in Europe, which has already been raging for 

 several years, has had on the dye industry in North China, 

 where, before the war, the culture of dye plants fell off 

 largely in some places and in others owing to the great import 

 of cheap aniline dyes completely disappeared. Now when 



1 See "The dye plants in Manchuria," by B. W. Skvortzow (in 

 the Mag. "Bural Economy in North Manchuria" No. 7-8, 1918, 

 Harbin). 



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