205 
with superstition by the negroes both in Africa and the West Indies, 
and they can with difficulty be induced to cut it down or handle it. 
In India the tree yields an almost opaque gum of a dark-red colour, 
which is said to be astringent, and to be employed Se, in bowel 
complaints. The wood is soft and used in tanning leather. An inferior 
reddish fibre is,sometimes prepared from the bark, w hich i is used locally 
for making ropes and paper. It possesses, howev ver, no commercia 
value; and the barking of the iree would not compensate for the injury 
done to it as a source of floss. The young roots are also used medicinally 
in Bombay. They are dried in the shade, powdered and mixed with the 
juice of As fresh bark and sugar. 
In Java the growing silk-cotton trees are commonly used as telegraph 
posts as the branches grow so conveniently at right angles to the trunk 
that they do not interfere with the wires. - 
The kapok or floss from Eriodendron anfractuosum is, according to 
present demand, a fibre of considerable merit ‘The modern trade in it was 
created by the Dutch merchants, who drew their chief supply from Java. 
It is said that its elasticity and harshness prevent its becoming matted 
as in some other flosses. e extending use of kapok seems to | point to 
cotton—including that of the siinal-—the floss of Bombax malabaricum.. 
When the demand for ka ok first started, Indian exporters placed in, 
the market a quantity of very dirty simal, having a large percentage- 
of dust as well as seed. ‘This was at once gs and fetched a 
price that would not cover the transport charges. India thus fell 
into an inferior position, which might have been petra if carefully 
cleaned fibre had been sent to Euro 
n the Annual Report of the Director of the Botanical Department, 
Jamaica, for the year 1884, p. 49, the following particulars were given 
respecting kapok or silk-cotton 
The silk-cotton tree is a very y familiar d in the Jamaica — 
of making canoes; but for all practical purposes the tree is accounte: 
of little value in the West Indies. 
The chief supply of kapok for the Dutch market is obtained from the- 
East Indies, and — x: Arm 1877-82 the canis ee quantities. 
were imported, viz.: 1877, 14,093 bales; 1878, 10,519 bales; 1879, 
12,080 bales ; 1880, 6479 tales; 1881, 9991 bales, and 1889, 28 ,032 
bales. The average price prid in English money was 7d. per lb. 
nearly. 
A t difficulty found in the importation of silk-cotton was due to 
its d bulk and the T cost of transport. This difficulty has now 
been overcome by a silk-eotton press constructed by Stork and Co. 
aio 
It now remains for some enterprising firm to initiate the 
collection of silk-cotton in Jamaiea and ship it in well packed bales 
for the European market. If each cotton tree yielded at the rate of 
about 100 lbs. weight of clean floss there might be exported from 
Jamaica every year about 3000 bales of silk-cotton of the value of 
90002. 
In Ceylon, according to the Tropical Agriculturist (1884, p. 153), 
kapok was collected throughout the villages in the interior, principally 
u 94127. B 
