7° 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[August i, 1881. 
these samples are nearly up to the requirements, i 
The only one is No. 28, which could be used for 
China grass purposes, and this would only sell freely 
when the market is bare of the regular fibre. 
6. The reports of tne experts were sent to the 
Committee, and they have now furnished their final 
report and recommendations. As no competitor has 
produced a fibre of a value even approaching the 
amount fixed in the Resolution of August, 1877, the 
Committee do not recommend the grant of cither of 
the prizes to any of the competitors. They are how- 
ever, of opinion that some of the machines possess 
sufficient merit to warrant the grant of a reward to the 
owners ; and the gentlemen mentioned by them, as 
deserving of remuneration, are Messrs. Nagoua, Vander 
Ploeg, and Cameron. The fibre turned out by Mr. 
Vander Ploeg was valued less highly than that pro- 
duced by Messrs. Nagoua and Cameron, but the 
Committee attribute this to the fact that he aimed 
at producing the fibre in a finished state fit for the 
spinner (a condition in which it is understood that 
the Kngiish dealer does not require it), and not to 
the inability of his macbiues to yield as good fibre 
as those of Massrs. Nagoua and Cameron. They re- 
mark also that there is little novelty in Mr. Cameron's 
process, and that it is only an improvement on a- 
method by which fibre is actually extracted from various 
plants by the natives of India. The same method 
is also applied in many of the Indian jails for the 
extraction of aloe fibre. 1 he process is simple enough 
to be employed by the natives with hardly any in- 
struction, and any kind of stems, green or dry, shart 
or long, could be treated by it : but it would be 
difficult of application in a rhea plantation where the 
stems of many acres of land would have to be worked 
off quickly. Having regard to these circumstances, 
the committee recommend i hat a grant of R5,000 each 
be made to Messrs. Nagoua and Vander Ploeg, and 
another of HI, 000 to Mr. Cameron. 
7. As none of the fibre produced came up to the 
conditions prescribed, the Governor-General in Council 
agrees that the prizes offered by the Government of 
India in 1877 cannot be awarded. At the same time, 
he concurs in the Committee's opinion that some re- 
cognition of their efforts is due to the three gentlemen, 
whose machines yielded the best results or appeared 
to possess superior merit, and he sanctions the grant 
to them of the sums recommended by the Committee. 
8. From the low valuation put by the English firms 
on the samples of fibre produced at the late competition, 
it does not seem probable that Indian rhea fibre will 
be able, for the present at least, to compete success- 
fully with the Chinese product, while the experience 
which has been so far gained also points to the con- 
clusion that in most parts of India the cultivation of 
rhea cannot be undertaken with profit- Rhea is natur- 
ally an equatorial plant, and it requires a moist air, 
a rich soil, and plenty of water, while extremes of 
temperature are unfavourable to it. Such conditions 
may be found in parts of Burma, Uppar Assam, and 
in some districts of Eastern and Northern Bengal : and 
if rhea can be grown in such places with only so 
much care as is required in an ordinary well-farmed 
field for a rather superior crop, it is possible that it 
may succeed commercially. An experiment on a some- 
what large scale has been undertaken in the Dinaj- 
pur district— one of those in which rhea has for many 
years past been cultivated on a small scale by the 
pesantry for their own use — and the results will be 
Watched with interest. Until, however, private enter- 
prise has shown that the cultivation of the plant can 
be undertaken with profit in these or other parts of 
the country, and that real need has arisen for an 
improved method of preparing tho fibre in order to 
stimulate its production, the Government of India 
thinks it inadvisable to renew the offer, which it has 
now made for thiJ second time without result, of 
i rewards for suitable machines. But in order to aid 
persons who are anxious to try the cultivation of the 
plant in localities which are prima facie suitable, the 
Government will be willing to place roots at their 
disposal. A plot of about two or three acres will, 
therefore, continue to be kept under rhea in the 
Botanical Gardens at Howrah for the supply of roots 
to intending growers. 
9. A sample of China grass valued at £50 a ton 
in the English market has been deposited in the 
Economic Museum at Calcutta, and in accordance with 
the recommendation of the Committee, an endeavour 
will be made to obtain specimens of the fibre produced 
by the several competitors at the trials at Saharan- 
pur from the Secretary of State, to whom all the 
samples were sent. These samples, with the valua- 
tions of the experts noted on them, will also be 
deposited in the Economic Museum for inspection bv 
the public. 
Order.— Ordered that a copy of this resolution be 
forwarded to the President and Members of the Rhea 
Committee ; to the competitors ; and to the Govern- 
ment of Bengal, with reference to para. 8 ; and with 
a request that the necessary instructions may be com- 
municated to the Superintendent of the Royal Botanical 
Gardens at Howrah. 
Ordered also that a copy of the Resolution be for- 
warded to the Department of Finance for informa- 
tion and further orders, and that the Resolution be 
published in the Supplement to the Gazette of India 
(True Extract. ) 
C. W. BOLTON, 
Offg. Under Secretary to the Government of India. 
THE TIMBER-TREES OF THE STRAITS. 
(From the Straits Times.) 
As a great deal of uncertainty exists in connection 
with the botanical nomenclature of our best tim- 
ber trees, I have been induced to offer for publication 
in your columns a short resume of the information 
I have been able to collect upon the subject during 
my five years' residence in the colony, principally 
with the view of calling more direct attention to 
them than they have as yet received ; and inviting 
discussion, and the opinions of others who have had 
practical experience with them, as by this means a 
large amount of original information is often drawn 
out, as instanced by the amount of information col- 
lected in the Straits on the origin of Malayan Guttas 
and Caoutchoucs since my first contributions to their 
history in 1877. 
With the exception of Col. Low's Dissertation, as 
given in Cameron's Malayan India, and Major McNair's 
Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 
which was published in the Government Gazette last 
year, very little, so far as I know, has ever been 
published on the subject. 
The boianical names which I contributed to Major 
McNair's report were professedly provisional, and a 
more intimate aequaintauce with the writings of Miquel, 
Horsfield, Maingay, and others, has disclosed several 
errors of nomenclature in it which I propose to correct 
in the following notes. 
It is to be regretted that the large stock of samples 
of our indigenous timber trees in the offices of the 
Public Works Department in the Colony was not 
made use of for Major McNair's report instead of 
using Col. Low's descriptions verbatim. 
India, owing to its perfectly organized system of 
forest conservancy, now deservedly stands at the head 
of all the British dependencies — if not of the whole 
world— for the way in which its forest wealth has 
been developed, and the amount of accurate and 
valuable information that has been collected and pub* 
lished on the subject. 
