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A.—The Plants producing Textile Fabrics in China. 
In Chinese the character Ma is generic of plants loge 2 textile 
fabrics ; and the following kinds are distinguished both by colloquial 
and book usage [Ма also includes certain plants the seeds of which are 
used for their oil, and also certain herbs the foliage of which simulates 
hemp in appearance; but with these we have at present nothing to 
do] :— 
1. Ta Ma, of books ; ders Ма, colloquially in North China, because 
there the castor-oil plan nt is spoken of as Га E (“large Ма”), from 
its stature; Huo Ma colloquially in South Chin 
ese names indicate common or Russian “heats the product of 
Cannabis sativ 
So far as my experience in Hupeh goes, this plant is chiefly cultivated 
there for the oil from its seeds, and for coarse Aa u eg in d 
* - Ching Ma. Bus is pep ha the product of the plant 
n to botanists as Abutilon Avicenne, Gertn. It is commonly 
pr in Hupeh and Szechwan, and is the greater давой = э all, 
of the “ hem mp” passed through the Ichang Customs. According to 
Bretschneider, it is also cultivated in Chihli; AE I have ie, doubt 
I 
h 
support of this I find in a Customs publication that all d hemp 
exported from Tientsin i is called by the Chinese Ch‘ing Ma, and by the 
foreign merchants “ jute.” But es is some confusion DOO this 
and the next article, as will be show 
3. * Huang Ma."—This is * нет jute,” the jéodues of Corchorus 
Kx y> was, L. The plant is figured in Chinese books, and, according to 
the Vienna Exhibition Catalogue, its fibre is exported from Sha angha ai. 
Башен mentions it for Canton, and Dr. Faber says it is cultivated in 
Szechwan under the name Pai Ma. This name is given in the Chinese 
Herbal, the Pén-ts‘ao as a synonym of Ch‘ing Ma; and it would seem, 
then, that Abutilon hemp and jute are liable to be асса by the 
inese. Perhaps some of the Ichang and some of the Tientsin export 
ay be ‘ Indian jute 
Chiu Ma. тыз i is Boehmeria nivea, Hook. et Arn., Rhea fibre or 
Chine grass, out of which most of the so-called Grasscloth (in Chinese 
Hupeh 
and various other provinces. The Kiukiang Trade Reports for 1868, 
p. 29, and 1869, pp. 115, 118, give the information that the “ hemp” 
exported from Kiukiang is proce? i in the districts of Shui-ch'ang in 
Kiangsi, Hsing-kuo and Wusiieh in Hupeh, and, besides what is ex- 
ported, a large quantity is locally woven into grasscloth The 1869 
Report, p. 118, enters into the question of grasscloth and its man 
facture me the *hemp," and gives tables showing the extensive 
exportation, &с. 
.. From this it would seem that the “hemp” exported from Kiukiang 
is really Rhea fibre; and I arn ve a large portion of the Hankow 
„рог of “ hemp” is the cd ibre 
e Paris Exhibition Catalogue, No. 1673, Hankow, gives Sst Ma. 
ms Ыя is also Rhea 
5. Hu Ma.—This is tgp usitatissimum, L.) which i culti- 
vated in i Bhensi, i in Mongolia, and in the mountainous of Hupeh 
