UTILIZATION OF ACACIA DECURRENS IN INDIA. 
T have been connected in India with an enterprise which has as its 
object the planting of Acacia decurrens, and the manufacture of its 
products to supply the India leather manufacturers with tanning extract, 
and to place on the Indian market acetic acid for the coagulation of 
rubber, acetone for the manufacture of explosives, and other products, 
such as methyl alcohol and formaldehyde from the distillation of the 
waste wood, and also brown paper from the spent bark. 
An experimental plantation, now in full growth, of 250 acres is 
situated at an elevation of 6,500 feet within the tropics in the Nilgiri 
Hills, in South India.. To insure a quicker growth, and to obtain larger 
areas of jungle land, new concessions of land have been obtained on the 
BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW PROJECT, 3,000-FT. LEVEL. 
j New concession, Wynaad Plateau, South India. — 
Wynaad Plateau, 3,000 feet above sea-level, in the same latitude—11° N. 
The rainfall is 150 inches per annum, and the temperature ranges from 
60° Fahr. to 105° Fahr. Six thousand acres have been obtained from 
Government free of assessments for the first five years. At the end of 
this period a rental is to be paid on the unimproved value. The trees 
will be ready for stripping at the end of five years’ growth. 
The method of planting is to drop two to three seeds into a hole 
scooped with a hoe (mamootie) 6 feet x 7 feet, or to the number of 
1,000 trees per acre, at a cost of 8d. per acre (Indian labour), after a 
preliminary clearing of native timber at a cost of 25s. per acre. Based 
on the results obtained in the experimental plantation in the Nilgiris, 
the yield of bark will be 25,000 lbs. per acre, and the yield of wood up 
to 100 tons (green) per acre. The annuual cost of supervision of the 
whole area will be £1,000 per annum. 
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