DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 133 



GO, 000 tons of the fiber, bringing at highest market prices 3| cents a pound. It is 

 extremely doubtful if the demand for cheap jute could bo met by the Southern farm- 

 ers at present prices, even if the cotton crop should continue to be baled with jute 

 bagging, and the new inventions for compressed bales covered with iron suggest a 

 contingency worth considering. The Southern jute planter, then, could only endeavor 

 to fill the demand for the higher-priced fiber at the best prices he would be able to 

 realize in competition with the Indian product. That he would be able to secure the 

 full price of the foreign commodity, judging from samples of American jute I have 

 examined, there is littlo doubt ; and were he to grow a superior product, which he 

 would be able to do with better practices in culture than are followed in India, he 

 can fill a limited demand for fiber at higher prices than the Indian product, for use 

 in superior grades of juto manufactures. In time, special uses in manufacture might 

 be created that would be filled exclusively by American jute, but this can not be 

 assured. 



* Specimens, in series, Mus. U. Dept. Ag. 



Corchorus siliquosus. 



This small shrub is a well-known tropical American species, said to be indigenous 

 in the West Indies and southward. It is a herbaceous plant only 2 or 3 feet high, 

 its leaves differing from those of the two commercial species " in not having bristles 

 or the two bottom teeth, and there is usually a line of minute hairs along the stem." 

 It is not regarded for its fiber, its only economic uses being the making of besoms by 

 the negroes, while the inhabitants of Panama employ the leaves in an infusion which 

 is a substitute for tea. 



Cord grass, Fresh water (see Spartina). 

 Cordia cylindristachya. Black Sage. 



This genus of Borraginacex contains almost two hundred species of plants found 

 in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They are trees or shrubs ; the fruits 

 of some species are eaten, and also used in pharmacy, and some of them are valued 

 as timber trees. 



C. cylindristachya is a Trinidad species, said to be (i a common wayside weed, the 

 fiber of which is seldom seen except in museums and at exhibitions'' (Hart). Its 

 fiber is fit for coarse forms of cordage. Samples of the fiber of C. macrophylla (the 

 Manjack), of C. gerascanihus (the Spanish elm), and of C. seuestena all tropical 

 American species, were received from the Smithsonian Institution in 1869, without 

 data. A good ^specimen of C. colococca appears in the Herb. Col. Univ. ~N. Y., 

 which shows that it is unimportant economically. 



Cordia myxa. 



An Indian species (western, central, and south India). Wild in the Himalayas, 

 cultivated on the plains. 



Fiber. — The bark is made into ropes, and the fiber is used for caulking boats; 

 fuses are also made from it. " From the inner bark is obtained a fiber, from which 

 the coiled match of the native firearms is made" (James). 



My notes on this species, in Ann. Kept. Dept. Ag., 1879, are as follows: Cordia 

 angusiifolia, called by the natives of Mysore nanvuli, is used in the manufacture of 

 rope. The bark is extracted in ribbon-like layers, and then twisted into cordage. 

 It is possible some of the species might yield a useful fiber for textile purposes, 

 though the examples in the museum are very inferior. In its lace-bark appearance 

 the bast resembles Sterculia ; it is white in color, soft, and of inferior tenacity. 



* Specimens. — Mus. U. S. Dept. Ag. 



Cordia rothii. 



The C. angustifolia of Spon. A small tree of northwest and central and south India. 

 The liber or inner bark yields a coarse, gray bast fiber, which is used by the natives 



