September i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
gcther, and are removed to bamboo tatties called 
ehendriffai: Tlirco days afterwards tbey begin to spin 
cocoons. During tbe process tbe tatties are exposed to 
the morning sun at sunrise for about half-an-hour 
and tben bung up to the roof inside the house. In 
two days more tbe cocoons are collected in bamboo 
baskets; a sufficient number are laid aside for a 
fresh propagation, and the rest are subjected to 
a Bteaming process to kill tbo chrysalides. The 
silk is unwound from the cocoons by putting them 
in a chatty with boiling water and a fow cleaning 
nuts (Ponnalangal) and attaching the ends of two or 
moro cocoons to a light wheel turned by baud. The 
cleaning nuts probably serve as solvent for the 
natural gum secreted by the silkworm for build- 
ing the walls of bis cocoons together. There does 
not appear to be any specific disease prevalent in 
the taluk among the silkworms. They are said to 
be affected in Abnormal seasons of heat or rain but 
not to such nn extent as to produce a marked loss 
in tbo quantity of silk. Tbo following table shows 
the average price of raw silk per maund during tbo 
last ten years : — 
Years. Average price. 
Its. A. P. 
The price of ono maund of raw silk in the 
year July 187'J to Juno 1880 .. .. 130 0 0 
Tbo price of ono maund of raw silk in the 
year July 1.S80 to Juno 1881 .. .. 110 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw pilk in tbo 
yejr July 1881 tQ Jane 1882 .. . . 12."> 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw silk in the 
year July 1882 to Juno 1883 .. . . 120 0 0 
The price of ono maund of raw silk in the 
year July 1883 to June 188 1 . . . . 100 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw silk in the 
yoar July 1881 to June 188.-> .. . . 00 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw silk in the 
year July 188."> to June l8S(i . . ..110 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw silk in the 
year July 188(1 to June 1887 . . . . 1 10 0 0 
The price of one maund of raw silk in tbo 
yoar July 1887 to February 1888.. .. 130 0 0 
Tbo prico is said to lluctuato according to the 
increase or decrease in the importations of China or 
other silk. — Indian Agriculturist. 
♦ 
NOTES OX EAST INDIAN GUMS. 
DV J. PHEBBLE, BOMBAY. 
During the lost few years large quantities of gums, 
the production of Indian trees, have boon exported 
from Bombay,. About three-fourths of these exports 
go to the United Kingdom, and always I think to 
London, under the names of "ghati," "amrad," 
•' nomrawutty," etc. In a recent paper on theso gums, 
published in this. Journal,* these names and the origin 
of the gums do not appear to be well understood, 
hence some notes on these points may be of interest. 
"Gha'M," an aboriginal or purely Indian word, has 
the primary meaning of a strait or pats through a 
mountain. Drugs or vegetables of country or iocal 
production are somtimes distinguished as "ghati " from 
those which are importid from foreign ports or from 
a distnuce; thus there is " gbiiti-pitpapra " (J/USlicia 
procumbent), which is used as a substitute for the true 
pitpupra (Fumuria officinalis), imported from Persia, 
and " gbati-min hi " (Capsicum annum), country-grown 
chillies as distinguished from a vaiiety resembling the 
Weal Indian and imported from Goa and kuowu as 
" gowar-mirchi,"t ami lastly" ghati" gum, gum coll- 
ected on the ghats and lulls of tho couutry aud 
culled " ghati " id contradistinction to the variety Im- 
ported from foreign ports. 
The best picked "ghati" gum ns now exported 
from Bombay is entirely or almost entirely derived 
from Anogeissus bttifdw.% I think Dalzcll is tho 
* " Olmtti and other Indian Substitutes lor Gum 
Arabic," J'/mnn Journ., April I I, 1888. 
f Dymock, ' Materia Uedica of Western India.' 
I I consulted Dr. Dymock on this point, and he is 
also of opinion that the gum now exported as ghutli is 
durived an statudi 
first author who mentions this gum. He says, " tho 
tree produces a very white, hard and valuable gum." 
The Bombay name is " dauro " or " dabria." It is 
largely used throughout India for calico printing, for 
which it has a high reputation, and as has been shown 
by Mander it may with advantage be us, d in pharmacy 
in place of the high priced and scarce Kordofan gum. 
I have obtained the same reactions with this gum as 
was observed by Mander with a London sample of 
'•gh ; ',ti" gum henco I conclude that his sample was 
free from admixture with other gums. 
" Oomrawuttee " gum derives its name from Oomra- 
wnttee, or Amravti, tho chief town of the Hyderabad 
assigned districts known as the lierars, the centre of 
a prosperous trade and officially described as " the 
very home of the cotton plant and the heart of the 
cotton trade in India." It gives its name to a variety 
of cotton staple, " the Oomrawutties," and such phrase, 
as "good oomras," "good fine oomras,*' " oomra 
variety," are to be met with in the Bombay cotton 
market reports. Oomrawutti gum is considered by tbe 
native, gum dealers in Bombay to be of two kinds, the 
" ghati " and the " amrad ; " the latter they consider to 
be derived from the babool tree (Acacia toi'dlricd) . 
Babool gum is distinguished from all other gums that 
1 have examined by being unaffected by either neutral 
or basic acetate of lead, and by being more or less 
darkened, but not gelatinized, by ferric chloride. Sim- 
ples of babool gum that have hung long on the tree 
and are of a deep reddish-brown colour give a very 
dark coloration, almost black, but tbe p ile samples aro 
less affected. The Oomrawuttee sample examined by 
Mander was evidently babool gum. With regard to 
the name "amrad," I do not think it has any reference 
to "amra," the native name for the gum derived from 
Spondias ma wifeva, as this gum has a character more 
nearly resembling traga:auth than Arabic gum. Forty 
grains of it form a jelly with about two ounces of 
water. I thought it might be a corruption of "amravti,'' 
but the gum dealers can give no satisfactory explan- 
ation of the meaning of the word further than that it 
is applied to all gums of a reddish lint. It is therefore 
probably a word imported into India, aud as the name 
is principally applied to Barbary aud Egyptian gums it 
may bo a corruption of the Arabic word hamra, red, 
and this thought is supported by a statement I have 
recently seen that " amrad " is a corruption of 
" amhara, * a name applied to a gum derived from 
an acacia. 
Gums are sent to Bombay from all p irts of Iudia, 
but the best come from Amravti. Other centres are 
Nagpur, Jubbnepur and Cawnpur, and a good deal is 
collected on the ghats of the Bombay presidency. On 
arrival in Bombay they are sorted by cooly women and 
children. Anogeissus gum, possessing well-marked 
physical characters, is easily separated, aud is scut to 
to the Loudon market almost free from admixture, but 
the dark coloured or amrad gums arc generally mix- 
tures of various gums, babool gum pro ioniinatiug. 
During the last financial year 20,S95 cwts. of gum Brabic 
of Indian production were exported from Bombay 
valued at lv7D3,931. f — I'ltarmaccittical Journal. 
CHEMICAL NOTES ON TEA. 
BY DR. B. H. r.\CI< AND A. J. COWNLKY. 
In the experiments made some lime since and re- 
corded in the paper "Gnomical Notes on Tea" 
(Vharm. Journ., [3], xviii., 417), it was found that in 
the small quantities of tea. merely f> giatns, then 
operated on, no evideuco could be obtained of tho 
presence of theobromine, and we were so lur unable 
to arrive at any definite conclusiou as to the opiuiou 
expressed by Liebig aud Zoller, that an alkaloid which 
tin v found in a sample of Himalayan t< a was none 
other than theobromine. Shortly afti r the publication 
of our paper we were enabled, by tho courtesy ot 
Messrs. Gow, Wilson and Stanton, to obtain an au- 
thentic sample of Himalayan tea, and were thus 
* British and Colonial Druyyist, May 19, p. 539. 
t ' Annual Statement of tho Trade aud Navigation 
of tho l*oi t of Bombay," liau sud l;st>7. 
