CHAP. VI.

PLANTS CURIOUS OR USEFUL IN THE ARTS.

SECTION I.

Kadsi, or Paper-tree of Japan:

Morus Papyrifera.—LINN.

THE Morus or Mulberry genus contains seven species, mostly na

tives of hot climates. Of these two are of great use in the arts: Morus tinctoria, or fustic-wood, a fine American timber-tree, affording a principal ingredient in most of our yellow dyes, for which purpose this material is an extensive object of commerce; and morus papyrifera, or kadsi of Japan, from which the ingenious natives manufacture their beautiful and glossy paper. This tree is also found in Otaheite and others of the Australasian or South Sea Islands, where the bark is spun into the finest sort of cloth. It has of late years been propagated from seeds in France, and in a sandy soil, is said to thrive better than the common mulberry. Like the last, its leaves are also an excellent food for the silk-worms.

The following is the process pursued in Japan for converting the bark of the kadsi into paper. Every year, when the leaves of the paper-tree fall off, the young shoots are cut into sticks about three feet long, and being tied up in bundles are boiled with water till the bark shrinks from the wood. The sticks are then exposed to the air till they grow cold, and being slit open length-ways, the bark is taken off, dried, and carefully preserved. Afterward, being soaked in water till it is soft, it is scraped, and the stronger bark, which is a full year's growth, is separated from the thinner, which covered the younger branches, the former yielding the best and whitest paper. The bark being then cleansed from all knots and impurities, is boiled in clear lye, and constantly stirred about till it becomes so tender, that on being slightly touched, it will separate into small fibres. The bark thus softened is washed in a river in sieves, and constantly stirred about with the hands, till it is diluted into a soft delicate woolly substance, and then put upon a thick, smooth, wooden table,

to be beat with sticks till it resembles the pulp of soaked paper. The bark thus prepared is put into a narrow tub, with the slimy infusion of rice, and the infusion of the oreni root, which is also slimy aud mucous; which being mixed into an uniform liquid substance, by stirring it with a thin reed, the sheets are formed one by one, by taking up this liquid substance in a proper mould made of bulrushes instead of wire, carefully laid upon one another, on a table covered with a double mat, while a small piece of reed is put between every sheet; which standing out a little, serves in time to lift them up conveniently, and take them off'singly. Every heap is covered with a small board of the same shape and size with the paper, on which are laid weights, which are at first small ones, lest the sheets, which are as yet wet and tender, should be pressed together into one lump; but by degrees are added more and heavier, to squeeze out the water. The next day the weights are taken off, and the sheets lifted up one by one, and with the palm of the hand clapt to long planks, and exposed to the sun when fully dry, they are taken off, laid up in heaps, pared round, and then kept for use or sale.

[Seba. Kampfer. Amanitates.

SECTION II.

Cotton-plant.

Gossipium.

THIS genus produces ten species of trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants; a few of them natives of America, but by far the greater number of Asia.

Most of these afford a wool that may be usefully applied to mechanical or domestic purposes, or woven into cloths. The cotton shrubs of the American islands grow without the smallest cultivation, but their wool is coarse and short, and hence cannot easily be spun; if imported into Europe it might answer the purpose of felts in the manufacture of hats; but it is generally consumed by the inhabitants themselves, as stuffing for pillows and mattresses.

The generality of the West India species are annuals; but G. arboreum of India is a perennial tree, both in root and branch, rising in a straight line about eight feet high, with leaves in five palmate lobes the lobes lanceolate, obtuse, and mucronate.

The cotton chiefly selected for propagation is G. herbaceum, a

native of the East Indies; a pubescent herb; with the stem spotted with black at its top; leaves downy, penduncles branched, shorter than the petioles; outer calyx three-parted, with heart-shape, cut segments dotted with blaek; corol one-petalled, with a short tube, five-parted, the segments pale yellow, with five red spots at bottom; capsule three-valved, three-celled. The pods are not unfrequently as large as middling-sized apples. The common cotton plant thrives. best in respect of pod in new grounds; but best in respect of fruit in dry stony ground that has been tilled already; and hence such is the soil generally preferred by our planters. The period of cultivation commences in March and April, and continues during the spring rains. The holes for the seeds are made in distinct rows, something like hop-planting, at a distance of seven or eight feet from each other; the seeds are thrown in and earthed over; and when they have shot forth to the height of five or six inches, all the stems are pulled up, excepting two or three of the strongest. These are cropped twice before the end of August, nor do they bear fruit till after the second pruning. By such repeated croppings, the plant, though naturally an annual, may be prolonged and made to bear sufficiency of fruit to repay the planter for three years, yet it is better to renew them, if there be opportunity. When the cotton is gathered in, the seeds are picked out from the wool, by means of a cotton-mill, of a simple contrivance, and perfectly adequate to the purpose.

The cotton shrub of China is rendered essentially useful in that country. When the husbandman has got in his harvest, then he sows cotton in the same fields; and raking the earth over the seeds, a shrub about two feet high is produced, the flowers of which appear by the middle of August. These are generally yellow, but sometimes red. The flower is succeeded by a small button of the size of a nut, which opens in three places; and on the fortieth day after the appearance of the flower, discovers three or four wrappings of cotton extremely white, and of the same form as the pod of the silk-worm; this being fastened to the bottom pod, contains seed for the following year. It is then the season for getting in the crop; but in fair weather they leave it to be exposed two or three days to the heat of the sun, which causing it to swell, increases its value. As all the fibres of the cotton are strongly fastened to the seeds they inclose, the people make use of an engine to separate them. It

contains two smooth rollers, one of wood and the other of iron, about a foot long and an inch thick, in a manner close to each other. While one hand gives motion to the first of these rollers, and the foot to the second, the other hand applies the cotton, which is drawn through and separated from the seeds which remain behind. Afterward they card and spin the cotton, and weaving it, convert it into calico.

On the island of Sumatra the silk cotton tree flourishes near the city of Acheen, These trees are large, and have a smooth ashcoloured rind, and are generally full of fruit, which hangs down at the ends of the twigs like purses, three or four inches long. No tree can grow more regular and uniform: the lower branches being always the largest and longest, and the upper gradually lessening to the top. When the cotton is ripe, the pods drop off the tree, for the cotton is so short, that it is not thought worth gathering; though they will sometimes take the pains to pick it off the ground, to stuff their quilts with.

The cotton shrub of Hindostan is of great use, for of this they manufacture ginghams, muslins, calicoes, &c. and therefore, every year, sow large fields with the seed.

The cotton tree is also cultivated there, and grows to a great height. The fruit, if it may be so called, or pod, becomes of the size of a hen's egg; and then bursting, like that of the shrub, yields a fine white wool.

In Abyssinia, the cotton shrub is extremely plentiful.

[Linn. Lockyer. Barrow. Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses.

SECTION III.

New Zealand Flax.

Phormium tenax.-WILDEN.

THE systematic name for the common flax is linum, of which there are twenty-five known species; the linum usitatissimum, or peculiarly useful linum, being that employed in our manufactories of linen several of the other species, however, being useful to a certain extent for other purposes. The flax before us is of a different genus, and is called phormium; it possesses but one species, that described above by the name of tenax. It is exquisitely silky, grows luxuriantly in New Zealand, and will, as we trust,

before long be transplanted to New South Wales, and be found growing with equal luxuriancy in that territory. In the former country it flourishes every where near the sea, and in some places a considerable way up the hills, in bunches or tufts, with sedgelike leaves, bearing on a long stalk yellowish flowers, which are succeeded by a long roundish pod, filled with very thin shining black seeds.

This plant serves the inhabitants instead of flax and hemp, and excels all that are put to the same purposes in other countries. Even of this plant there are two sorts, and the leaves of both resemble those of flax, but the flowers are smaller, and their clusters more numerous; in one kind they are of a deep red, and in the other yellow. Of the leaves of these plants, with very little pre`paration, they make all their common apparel; and of these they also make their strings, lines, and cordage, for every purpose; which are so much stronger than any thing we can make with hemp, as not to bear a comparison. By another preparation they draw from the same plant long slender fibres, which shine like silk, and are as white as snow: of these, which are also surprisingly strong, the finer cloths are made; and of the leaves, without any other preparation than splitting them into proper breadths, and tying the strips together, they make their fishing nets, some of which are of an enormous size. This plant, which is found in hill and valley, in the driest mould and in the deepest bogs (but that in the bogs is the largest), would be a great acquisition to England, could it be brought to flourish here. With this view Captain Furneaux brought over a quantity of the seed: and after quitting New Zealand, he touched at no other land than the Cape of Good Hope, until he arrived at Spithead, having traversed one entire hemisphere of the globe in seven months. These seeds were immediately carried to his Majesty, and by his order sown in Kew garden;

but the whole unfortunately failed, and therewith the hope of ac

quiring this valuable vegetable.

[Cook. Miller. Editor.