ON HEMP. 



211 



white, but all are equally strong. The white being purer and 

 clearer than the other, he agreed to pay a higher price for it, and 

 for the rest in proportion. The Board of Trade remark, that the 

 whole is of an indifferent quality. The white they suppose to be 

 over-steeped : Sunn of that colour they have observed to be generally 

 weak. They cannot account for the reddish and dirty colour ; but 

 desire the Resident will ascertain and report the mode in which the 

 Sunn of those colours has been prepared. 



Board of Trade Cons. i\th Dec. 1801. 



Commercolly. — The Resident, in reply to the Board's 

 Remarks as above, states, that the inferiority of his Sunn was 

 occasioned by the inundation, which swept away the whole of 

 every species of cultivation : the fields were from four to six feet 

 under water. To save the plants, the Riotts took them up before 

 they were ripe : this and the injury the fibres sustained by being so 

 long under water, and the damp which prevailed when the Sunn 

 was preparing, occasioned the inferiority, and the different colours 

 of white, reddish, and dirty-brown. 



Santipore* — The Resident sends a sample of two bales made 

 by himself, as an experiment, to ascertain which mode of preparation 

 had the preference. 



The chaul, or outer-bark, of these was removed, by striking 

 the bundles of plants on the water a few times after the steeping was 

 completed : and this seems to be the only method by which it can 

 be effectually done. ■ Board of Trade Cons. \stJune, 1802. 



e e % Dacca. 



