The Musa genus of plants, the plantain or banana tribe, is well known from two of its species, M. para. disiaca and AI. textilis. Of all the substitutes for hemp, Probably the most important is that obtainable from the banana or musa ; the stem of all of the species pro duces a fibre of some utility. Very little attention has ever been paid to the cleaning of its fibres, though the most conspicuous amongst the Indian fibrous plants. It is everywhere cultivated in the plains of India for its fruit. It bears fruit only once, and is then cut down and left to rot upon the ground. There will be no difficulty in obtaining from this plant alone a quantity of fibre of admitted valuable quality, applicable to the manufacture of every species of cloth or other article usually made from flax or hemp, and of equal quality, and it can be used with no less facility and advantage in the manufacture of paper. It yields an excellent substitute for hemp or linen thread. On cutting down the stem, remove old, stained, or withered leaves, and strip off the different layers. Lay a leaf stalk on a long flat board with the inner side upper most, scrape off the pulp with a blunt piece of hoop iron or old spoon ; turn it, and treat the outer side similarly. When a bundle is obtained of these partially cleaned fibres, wash it briskly in a large quantity of water, rubbing and shaking it to get rid quickly of all the sap and pulp; Spread them out in thin layers or hang them in the wind to dry, but exposure to the sun's says iinparts a brownish-yellow tinge.
Arida textilis is the well-known abaca of the Philip pine Islands. The fruit is harsh, small, and uneatable when allowed to ripen, but in practice the ripening is prevented, for the flower is nipped off, and that in creases the strength of the fibre. It has been immemori ally cultivated, and contributes largely to the clothing of the four millions of inhabitants of the Philippines, besides being largely exported in the raw state. It is made into cordage in the country, and cloth of a very fine quality and of great durability. In Great Britain it is only known in the raw state, under the name of 3Ianilla hemp ; and Great Britain in 1877, 1878, and 1879 was receiving about 18,000 tons, value £490,000, or £27 a. ton. The cost of this article at the port of Manilla is about £14 a ton ; it is the coarsest fibres only that are exported, all the finer being retained for cloth, which as yet has not been made except in the Philippines. The fine grass-cloth, ships' cordage and ropes used in the South Sea whale fisheries, are'made from this substance. The outer stalks of the stem leaves yield the thickest and strongest fibres. Musa textilis is propagated by trans planting the suckers that spring up about the roots of the old plants. The abaca is generally planted in the cacao gardens, to shelter the shrubs from the heat of the sun ; and it seems to be only in Albay, Leyte, and on the north coast of Bandana° that it is cultivated expressly as an article of commerce, the production of sugar absorbing the attention of planters in districts more adjacent to the capital. Tile filaments are detached from the stem by a very simple process, which closely resembles the mode of preparing hemp in Europe. The Musa textilis is said to grow on the Ghats from Cape Comorin northward ; but on the northern slopes of the Ghats the plant does not reach a height fitted to afford a fibre of more than two feet in length. Its strength is well known to the Ghat people, who employ it occasionally for domestic purposes in ropemaking, as well as use the stem for food. This may possibly be the Musa superba. of the Dindigul valleys, at high elevations on the Travancore mountains, and wild on the Neilgherries at 7000 feet. It evidently requires a rich volcanic soil ; it would probably succeed in the 3Ioluccas and in the islands east of Java.
Nelumbium speciosum, the lotus, yields a useful fibre from its stalk.
In the Red Sea, cables are used formed of the coating of the branches of the date tree, Phcenix dactytifera. At Oopada, the same material is used mixed with a proportion of fibre of the kaldera bush, the Pandanus odoratissimus. The leaf-stalks are made into baskets. The leaves of the wild date tree, Phcenix sylvestris, and of the P. farinifera are made into mats, and the leaf-stalk into ropes, for draw-ropes for wells.
The Neiigherry nettle, Urtica heterophylla, is a very ferocious-looking plant, the least touch. producing a most acute though quickly subsiding pain. Its bark abounds in a fine white, glossy, silk-like, strong fibre. The Todawar race separate this flax by boiling the plant, and spin it into their coarse thread. If well prepared and procurable in quantity, it is fitted to com pete with flax for the manufacture of even very fine textile fabrics. Mr. Driver alludes to the superior quality of the fibre of the Neilgherry nettle, as com manding the high price of £45 to £50 per ton in the rough state, and well worth the encouragement of Government for its cultivation.
The leaves of the abundant pine-apple plant, Ananassa sativa, are largely used in the Malay Peninsula and in the islands of the Archipelago, to furnish different sorts of pine-apple fibre, from the coarse material used for cordage to the finest thread for weaving cloth. Fibre of the pine-apple is the Pina of the inhabitants of the Philippines, who manufacture from it their finest fabrics. The Chinese in the European settlements of the Indian Archipelago prepare the fibre in con siderable quantity, exporting it to China, where it is in great esteem for thread, and for weaving fine textures. The process of extracting and bleaching the fibres is exceedingly simple, and the first step is to remove the fleshy or succulent side of the leaf. A Chinese, astride on a narrow stool, extends on it, in front of him, a pine-apple leaf, one end of which is kept firm, being placed beneath a small bundle of cloth, on which he sits. He then with a kind of two-handled plane made of bamboo removes the succulent matter. Another man receives the leaves as they are planed, and with his thumb nail loosens and gathers the fibres about the middle of the leaf, which enables him by one effort to detach the whole of them from the outer skin. The fibres are next steeped in water for some time, after which they are washed in order to free them from the matter that still adheres and binds them toget'ner. They are now laid out to dry and bleach on rude frames of split bamboo. The process of steeping, washing, and exposing to the sun is repeated for some days, until the fibres are considered to be properly bleached. Without further preparation, they are sent into town for exporta tion to China.
Sanseviera Zeytanica, the bowstring hemp, is a plant of the Peninsula of India. and of Bengal. The leaves are three or four feet long. They are steeped in water for several days, to decompose the pulpy part, but they are apt to become discoloured by this process. A better plan is to beat the leaf and place it on a board, and remove the pulp by scraping with a rough stick or iron till all the pulp be removed. 100 lbs. of the leaves yield 27 lbs. of clean fibre. Boyle wrote that the fibre, though as fine and soft as human hair, possessed extra ordinary strength and tenacity, and when prepared in hanks bore so strict a resemblance to raw silk, that the difference could not be easily distinguished when the two were exhibited side by side. It is known by the name of bowstring hemp, 3Iarool, Moorva, and Chaga or Saga, in the different dialects, and is used for ropes, twine, thread, bowstrings, and in Trichinopoly for paper, and it has been spun into cloth of the finest quality. It is grown to some small extent in parts of the Peninsula, and more largely Noakhally, Shaha bad, Hazaribagh, and Singbhuna.