October i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
CHINESE WHITE WAX. 
The British Consul at Ichang, in his report for 
the year 1887, which lias only recently appeared, thus 
speaks of Ohinese White or Insect Wax :— " The 
steamer export of white wax (not bleached bees'- wax, 
but the insect wax produced by the coccus Pe-la) 
has increased greatly. This curious and beautiful 
substance, though widely used in China, and though 
known to science, and repeatedly noticed in books on 
China, seems to be unfamiliar in our home market. 
Its high price has been against it, but the price has 
gone down greatly. According to my information 
the price at Kia-tung-Fu (in Sze-ch'wan, on the Mi n 
River, some 700 miles up-river from Ichang) has lately 
been about Is. per pound avoirdupois. At Ichang 
there is at present no wholesale market for the 
article, but the wholesale cost, as got for local con- 
sumption, is stated at about Is. 3d. per pound. Al- 
lowing for duty, freight, commissions, &c, the article 
might be placed on the home market at about Is. 6d. 
per pound. In view of its beauty, hardness, and high 
melting-point, it might be acceptable in the candle 
manufacture, to serve as a coating or otherwise. Not 
knowing whether samples are readily to be got in our 
country, I think of sending a sample to the Society of 
Arts in London." 
The writer of this report is, perhaps, not aware that 
the wax has appeared commercially in this country, 
though only very occasionally. 
In Shantung, it seems, especially in the neigh- 
bourhood of Lai-yang, where the trees are plentiful, 
the insects are bred, and the wax produced. The 
insects are put on in the spring, and the wax is 
gathered at the end of the summer, after which the 
insects are collected, and preserved indoors till the 
following spring. At the Kia-tung-Fu the wax-farmers 
about the end of April, convey the very prolific 
female insects from the breeding districts to the wax 
district. The journey is performed on foot, and occu- 
pies about a fortuight, being performed only at night, 
as exposure to the heat of the sun would forward 
the hatching of the eggs, which must not take place 
till the females have been attached to the trees, which 
are either those of Fraxinus chinensis, or Ligustrum 
lucidum. Six or seven of the insects are wrapped 
together in a Palm-leaf, and attached to the branches, 
where they soon give birth to a multitude of young 
ones, and then die. The young insects swarm over 
the twigs of the trees, which they puncture in all 
directions, with the result that they are soon com- 
pletely incrusted with the white wax. No care is 
necessary while the insects are on the twigs, as nothing 
ever touches them, not even ants. About the latter 
end of August the twigs are cut off, and boiled in 
water, in which the wax melts and floats on the top. 
It is afterwards re-melted, and poured into pans 
where it cools into a translucent, crystalline, some- 
what brittle white mass, not unlike spermaceti. The 
exports of this wax from Shanghai in 1879 amounted 
to 6,542 piculs. — John E. Jackson, Museum, Royal 
Gardens, Kew. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
-6 
JUTE AND ITS USES. 
The development of the Jute industry in this country 
is one of the most mnrked in the history of any vege- 
table fibre, Dundee, as is well known, is the centre of 
this now flourishing trade, and it has been associated 
with the jute manufacture since about the year 1822. 
Jute, as is well known, is the fibre obtained from the 
stems of Corchorus capsularis and C. olitorius, belonging 
to the natural order Tilialas, natives of India, where 
it has for a very long time been used for making rice 
and sugar-bags. When first introduced into this 
country it was used for the coarser kind of work, such as 
sacks, bags, &c, but it was soon shown that the fibre 
was capable of being converted into fabrics of a very 
line appearance, and after being dyed was applicable 
to carpet weaving. It is still largely used for this 
purpose, but its use has also been extended in the 
direction of art tapestries and such-like printed fabrice ; 
and more recently jute has been applied to a large 
35 
number of uses, for which hemp has hitherto been in 
demand. The jute exhibits of Messrs. Cox Bros., of 
Camperdown Works, Dundee, at the late Glasgow 
Exhibition gave an excellent idea of the rapid deve- 
lopment of the trade, for besides a very great im- 
provement in carpet weaving and sacking, there were 
shown numerous finely-finished samples of window- 
cords, ropes, and twines, equal in ajmearance and 
finish to those made from the best hemp. Since the 
exhibition, specimens of these manufactures have been 
liberally presented to the Kew Museum. A very 
good idea of the importance of the jute trade may 
be had from a description of Messrs. Cox's works, from 
which the following notes have been gathered. 
The whole premises, which are built in a most 
substantial manner, cover an area of 28 acres ; a 
railway runs into the works from the Caledonian line 
for the direct conveyance of the jute, coal, and other 
materials ; and it is stated that, notwithstanding all 
modern improvements have been adopted in the machi- 
nery, as many as 90 tons of fuel are consumed per day. 
The jute fibre arrives' packed by hydraulic pressure 
into bales weighing about 400 lb. each, which are landed 
from the vessels in the Dundee docks into the railway 
wagons, and conveyed direct to the works ; from here 
the bales are taken as they are required to a house 
called the " batching-house," where they are hroken 
up and the qualities assorted. The fibre is then sub- 
jected to a mixture of oil and water to facilitate its 
subsequent treatment. The successive processes of 
carding, drawing and roving reduce the fihiments to 
certain degrees of fineness, and prepares them for 
the next process of spinning into yarn. The spinning 
mills contain over 20,000 spindle*, and the weaving 
sheds 1,000 power-looms. "About 120,000 ba.les of jute 
of 4001 b. each are annually used, which is one eighth 
of the consumption of the town of Dundee and 
district, and about one-fourteenth of the total im- 
ported into Great Britain, which includes much that 
finds its way to the Continent. Besides large quan- 
tities of every size of yarn sold to the trade, the 
length of cloth annually produced is from 30,000,0 00 to 
40,000,000 yards. Even a partial enumeration of the 
woven products of jute manufactured at these works 
shows how widely the fibre is made to eater into 
the commercial, agricultural, social, and even personal 
life of the world." The following are some of the 
articles enumerated : sacking, tarpaulins, rick covers, 
sacks, and bags for all purposes, horse blanketing, 
mattress cloth or bed ticks, furniture cloth, embroidery 
cloth, matting, hearthrugs, carpets, curtains, table and 
bed covers, and various other articles, to manufacture 
which as many as 5,000 hands are employed. — John 
R. Jackson, Museum, Royal Gardens Kew. — Gardeners' 
Chronicle. 
DRUG CULTIVATION IN JAMAICA. 
The director of the Jamica public gardens and 
plantations in his annual report for 1888, which has 
just been issued, observes that in cool places, under 
the shade of bananas, Nutmegs thrive well in Jamaica. 
The trees bear heavy crops, hut the fruit is small. 
Cacao does remarkably well along with the nutmegs, 
and the trees also bear heavy crops of fine pods. A 
sample of cacao was cured at the Hope gardens in 
May last, andjforwarded to Mr. Bravo, chocolate manu- 
facturer, Kingston, who pronounced it equal to cacao 
which he imports from Venezuela. Mr. Bravo manu- 
factured the sample into chocolate and exhibited it 
at the Kingston flower and horticultural show held 
in June, and competent judges declared it not infer- 
ior to the best chocolate imported from France. The 
sample of cacao was cured strictly in accordance with 
the instructions given in Mr. Morris's pamphlet on 
"Cacao — How to grow and how to cure it." Only 
one half of the mass, however, was "clayed," and 
Mr. Bravo is of opinion that the process is not at 
all necessary, the unclayed portion of our sample 
being in every way equal to the "clayed." 
Cinnamon grows luxuriantly at Hope. The young 
trees were raised from seeds obtained from plants 
of one of the best varieties brought from Ceylon, 
