DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 139 



The outer bark is rough, but the inner is soft, silky, and pliable, and of a brownish 

 color. It is removed in long strips, varying in width, a desirable quality in a bark 

 that is used in the manufacture of clothing, sandals, and ropes. These articles were 

 formerly made by braiding strips of bark together, or woven with the hand loom. 

 Females made skirts from strips of this bark by braiding a belt, to which they sus- 

 pended many strips of the same material, hanging down to the knees like a long 

 fringe ; the rest of the person was naked in summer. Mats were also made from this 

 bark, which were used as beds. (Dr. E. Palmer.) 



* Specimens of fiber, Bot. Mus. Harv. Univ. Little better than cypress bast. 



Cow Pea (U. S.). See Yigna catjang. 



Coyal (S. Am.). See Cocos crispa. 



Crin vegetal (Alg.). See Chamcerops humiiis. 



Crotalaria juncea. The Sunn Hemp of India. 



Exogen. Leguminosce. A tall shrub. 



Native names. — Chin-pat and Chumese (Ind.) ; Sanskrit name, Sana. 



The fiber is known as Sunn, Taag, or Conkanee hemp, Indian hemp, Brown hemp, 

 and Madras hemp. 



Abounds in southern Asia and tropical Australasia. In the Northwest Provinces of 

 India it has been cultivated to the extent of 50,000 acres annually. See lig. 2, PL V. 



Bast Fiber. — Takes the place of jute in portions of India; a better fiber than jute, 

 lighter in color, with a tensile strength that adapts it to cordage manufacture. 

 According to experiments by Roxburgh a dry line of jute broke with a weight of 143 

 pounds, and when wet, with 146: a similar sunn line sustained 160 and 209 pounds. 

 Royle has shown that a cord 8 inches in size of best Petersburg hemp broke with 14 

 tons 8 hundredweight and 1 quarter, while a similar rope of sunn only gave way 

 with 15 tons 7 hundredweight and 1 quarter. He further demonstrated the slight 

 deterioration of sunn hemp as follow s : A rope made in 1803 broke with a weight of 

 6 tons hundredweight 3 quarters, whereas, when kept till 1806, it gave way with 5 

 tons 17 hundredweight. 



In Dr. Wight's experiments with sunn, cotton rope, hemp, and coir, they were 

 found to stand a strain of 407, 346, 290, and 224 pounds, respectively. The fiber is 

 used principally for ropes and cables, though in India it is manufactured into cord- 

 age, nets, sackcloth, twine, and paper. The finely dressed and most carefully pre- 

 pared fiber is made into canvas of great durability. 



Sunn hemp is " probably one of the earliest of the distinctly named fibers, as we 

 find, in the Hindoo ' Institutes of Menu/ that the sacrificial thread of the Cshatriya, 

 or Rajpoot, is directed to be made of sana." The plant producing this fiber is a 

 shrub growing from 8 to 12 feet high, with branching stem marked with longi- 

 tudinal furrows. When cultivated it is sown quite close, at the beginning of the 

 rainy season, in order that the plants may grow tall and thickly together — the 

 natives say the thicker the better, so as to prevent the air passing through it — 80 to 

 100 pounds of seed being used to the acre, and some even sow a larger quantity. In 

 some portions of India two kinds are cultivated, one sown in May and June, when 

 the first showers fall, and the other in October, though in quality they are the 

 same. " That sown in June is cut in August and September, and the other about 

 April." 



Early in 1893 this Department imported a small quantity of the seed for test in 

 the South. The seed was distributed to 15 localities. While the plant grew well, 

 the stalks seemed deficient in fiber save in extreme southern Florida, a fine sample 

 having been sent from Fort Lauderdale. The experiment is worthy of a second trial 

 in this country, particularly in southern Florida. 



Cultivation. — In the Dictionary of the Economic Products of India there is a 



