SILK COTTONS aro products of several plants, Bombyx, Salinalia, Eriodendron, Ochrotna Ingo pus, the feathery, silk-like material in Calotropis pods and the Cryptostegia. The red cotton tree is the Salinalia Malabarica, and white cotton tree, Eriodendron aufraettiosum. liombyx ceiba and Rt!mann 3Ialabarica capsules, on bursting, dis play a flocculent substance, often mistaken by travellers for cotton. Mr. Williams, of Jubbulpur, succeeded in spinning and weaving some of it so as to form a very good coverlet. It might be used for stuffing pillows, muffs, or coverlets, for wadding, or for conversion into half-stuff for paper-makers, perhaps for making gun-cotton. In the Trans. of the Agri-Hortic. Soc. iii. p. 274, there is a report front the Society of Arts on two pieces of cloth made front tho Salinalia ; but it is observed that, from the shortness of the staple of the down, and its elasticity, it could not be spun by cotton-spinning machinery. The silky down of the Cryptostegia is strong, and might be applied to some textile manufactures.
In other countries, plants yielding this product are—Eriodendron Caribbmum, Don; Er. samauna;
Pachura barrigon, Seem. ; Chorisa speciosa, Denims. ; Eriocephalus, sp., of Africa.
The silk cotton of the Eriodendron anfractuosum is used in England for stuffing the pads of trusses. Cloth has been manufactured from an admixture of cotton and the floss of the mudar (Calotropis gigantea) and the ak (C. Hamiltonii), which produce this floss in great abundance. 3Iessrs. Thresher and Glenny reported their ability to turn it to account, if obtainable in clean, good condi tion at 135 per ton. The charges of the down are merely those of the labour employed and the packiue,c,. It may be collected at about 1 rupee 8 annas (38.) per maund-(82 lbs.). The plant is to be found in the greatest abundance everywhere, growing most luxuriantly in dry, sandy tracts where nothing else will flourish. The down ought to be collected in May and June, and spread at least over two months.-2Ifason ; Itoyle ; Madras Ex. Jur. Rep.