Show 1k INDIGO PLANTATIONS How the Valuable DyeStuff is Obtained i CULTIVATION OF THE PLANT The Process of Fermentation When the Seeds are Sown f Other Industrie GRENADA Nicara January 31 1888 + Special Correspondence of THE I HERALD Among Nicaraguas industries t indus-tries perhaps the most prominent and i promising Is the indigo culture a thousand thou-sand seroncs of that valuable dyestuff being annually exported and second in extent because involving more labor and danger but by no means secondary second-ary in importance is that of CAODTCHONE OS INDIA XUBBXK NIcaraguan yuliroet or rubberhunt ers are much like their class elsewhere except that these have a peculiar process pro-cess of reducing the caoutchone to a marketable commodity different from tbat practiced m Brazil and other countries coun-tries The term yulero is essentially Central Americanderived from ute the native name of the treeas the word caoutchone is South American I India rubber is not as many suppose the exuded gum of a tree but appears in the form of sap and is gathered much after the manner of maple tree S sap in Yankeeland Having minutely described its collection collec-tion and preparation in a previous I letter from Costa Rica we will not go into particulars now as the process is much the same all over Central America and Southern Mexico A full grown rubber tree not previously tapped will yield at least twenty gallons of sap and will run itself perfectly dry in a days time At that season pf the year when the juices begin to rise from the roots to the branches of the trees the yuleroes bestir be-stir themselves and hire out to the merchants who organize them in parties par-ties of thirty or forty and send them Into the woods equipped for two or three months stay When a party of yuleroa find a place in the deep forest where rubber trees are plenty they select a favorable spot on the banks of some lake or stream as a great deal of water is needed in the business and proceed to erect a t camp out of brush and palms This is their headquarterstheir temporary home in the depths of the wilderness practically cutoff from the rest of the world They begin by distributing their buckets at convenient distances Then each yulero selects his tree clears it of vines and creepers and nuehate in hand with a coil of rope wound around his waist he climbs the lower branches Having thrown one end of the rope over a convenient limb he lets himself down by it cutting diagonal channels through the bark of the tree in his descent de-scent left and right the cuts meeting at right angles In this great skill and expedition are required for the instant an incision is made THE MILK GUSHES FORTH in streams in a few moments flowing At the rate of four gallons an hour 1 At the bottom of the lowest cut not r far from the ground an iron spike six inches long is driven into the tree through which the sap runs into a bucket placed to receive it Having thus tapped a dozen trees 11 the yulero has all he can attend to A emptying the buckets as they rapidly till into tengallon casks that are provided pro-vided for the purpose In the evening these casks are rolled into camp and the milk strained through selves into barrels In other rubberproducing parts of the world it is then boiled but not so in Nicaragua The natives reduce it to gum by adding to the liquid the juice of a vine called achuna whicn nature has provided in abundance abund-ance and whicn acts upon caoutchone sap as rennet upon cows milk making curd of it in a few moments The yuleros cut the stem ot this singular vine into short pieces soak it in water and then put small pinches of it into pans with the crude caoutchone In the morning a quantity of darkbrown liquid resembling a weak solution of I licoriceis found on tho top of each pan which is poured off leaving the rubber in a solid cake of gumabout two pounds of it to every gallon of sap The gum cakes are then rolled under heavy weights of wood into long flat strips whLh are hung over poles to dry These strips are facetiously called tortillas pan cakes and at first are as white as vulcanized rubber but in a few days become black and hard as ao many planks The tortillas are then pilled up under cover till the end of the season when they are shipped to market mar-ket As to the yet more curious vegetable substance called indigowith which the markets of the world are supplied from India and Central Americasince it was spoken of as a mineral in letters 1Y patent issued in Germany after it had been in general used more than 600 years The indigo plant is halfshrub half yine growing two or three feet hign the coloring principle being contained not in the pale red flowers bur m tnt dull binishgreen leaves and is brought out bY its oxidation as the leaves are dried oris developed by submitting sub-mitting green leaves to A PROCESS OF FERMENTATION AND OXIDATION OXIDA-TION i r The seeds are sown in April in alight a-light soil well harrowed in and after a few showers the plants completely coyer the ground looking like a New Jersey sweet potato patch more than aavthing else except that even them the-m st hardy weed declines to grow with indigo Before the plants have reached their full height the leaves are cut always early in the morning while the dew is upon them and are carried at once to the factory Here they are t laid In a stone cistern twenty feet square and three or four feet deep Heavy weights are then placed upon them and heavier beams placed across these the object being to keep the leaves down when they swell Water is then admitted and fermentation soon commences In the course of tenor ten-or twelve hours according to the temperature tem-perature and condition of the plants the liquor is in great commotion as if K boiling frothy bubbles rise to the surface sur-face and their color first white be comes gray blue and then deep purple and finally a coppercolored scum covers the entire surface When the agitation subsides the liquor is drawn off into a lower vat the beams and I weights are removed from the upper one the steeped plants are taken out to be dried for fuel and the vat is prepared pre-pared for another charge Several men enter the lower cistern and beat up the liquid with paddles till the coloring mailer begins to appear ap-pear in small atoms This process requires re-quires an hour or two the appearance of a precipitate fine as sand leaving the water clear aboveindicating favorable fav-orable progress The beating is then discontinued and the vat is left a few hours for the indigo to subside The liquor is then run off from an upper vent and the indigo left in the bottom is then gathered up Sometimes lime is added or various gums to hasten the precipitate but this injures its marketable value as it slightly changes the color of the indigo Next the pulpy precipitate is mixed with more water in another cistern and is then passed through great sieves into a boiler where it is kpt hot to ebullition five or six hours Then being be-ing carefully freed from scum it is drawn off into a vat from which after subsiding more water is taken from the top and the remainder ia removed to what is called the dripperaa long wooden ease THE BOTTOM rfaroBATao van HOLES and covered with a woolen blanket The liquor passes through this filter and the operation is completed by subjecting ecting the residue to the action of a press forming it into a cake which is afterwards cut by a wire into smaller square blocks These are laid out on frames in toe shade to dry and are then left for several weeks in a drying house before being packed All this looks like a rather tedious process but then it pays well and the labor is really not much greater than in many less profitable branches of agriculture History tells us that in the early part of the present century I he southern part of the United States exported every year about 134 COO pounds of indigo which was then worth 62 cents per pound Up to the time of the late rebellion it was cultivated culti-vated in Florida and South Carolina where the yield was about 60 pounds to the acre and the crop required atten tion only from July to October lather more profitable than oranges one would think because not so easily affected by the vary ing seasons Though India is the native home of the indigo plant proper the indicum of the ancients it teems to flourish about as well in Egypt Europe the West Indies Brazil Mexico and Central America Though Bengal produces on an average 9000000 pounds of it every year that made in Nicaragua is regarded commercially as its equal lacking only energy and push on the part of the Central Americans to drive its faraway rival entirely out of the markets of the western world The history of indigo is interesting Without doubt it is the oldest dye stuffin use for it was old in India when imported thence into Italy in the eleventh century With the establishment establish-ment of direct trade with India by sea supplies of it were more easily obtained ob-tained in Europe and after the discovery covery of America a similar product was Drought from the New World Francisco Hernandez speaks of its use in Mexico by the eariy Aztecs the pigment pig-ment being called by them Fleuohuilli or mohuitli In the beginning of the seventeenth century the importations of indigo fromthe East Indies assumed great importance especially in Holland In 1671 there was brought over in seven vessels no less than 333f i5 pounds of it Its introduction caused great complaint among the Germans because it superceded the indigenous woad So the diet cf 1577 prohibited It altogether and it was denounced under the name of devilseye as a pernicious deceitful and corrosive substance The people of Nuremberg Nurem-berg who largely cultivated woad enacted acted A law compelling all the dyers to tale an oath every 3ear not to use indigo in any manner shape or form and they were still obliged to do so long after the dye was in universal me elsewhere The French gevernment also prohibited pro-hibited the use of indigo in the province prov-ince of Languedve in 1598 and the law was long in force A similar outcry was raised against it in England in theme the-me of Elizabeth and in 1581 it was condemned 07 an act of Parliament and pers ns were authorized to search for and destroy it Bud logwood also in every dyehouse the law remaining in force a foil century FAHHIE B WARD |