en drawn off into the beater vat, for if it stood longer in the
steeper, some of the indigo would settle among the leaves and be
lost. Hot water, as employed by some manufacturers, is not
necessary. The process with dry leaves possesses this advantage,
that a provision of the plant may be made at the most suitable
times, independently of the vicissitudes of the weather, and the
indigo may be uniformly made; and, moreover, that the fermentation
of the fresh leaves, often capricious in its course, is superseded
by a much shorter period of simple maceration.

PRODUCTION OF INDIGO IN INDIA.

maunds.

1840 120,000
1841 162,318
1842 79,000
1843 143,207
1844 127,862
1845 127,862
1846 101,328
1847 110,000
1848 126,565
1849 126,000

Average of the ten years 126,744 maunds.

The yield from the different districts in 1849, was nearly as
follows:--

maunds.
Bengal 84,500
Tirhoot 24,500
Benares 9,500
Oude 6,500
---------
125,000

In 1790 the general object of cultivation in Mauritius was indigo, of
which from four to five crops a year were procured. One person sent to
Europe 30,000 lbs., in 1789, of very superior quality.

CEYLON.--Indigo, though indigenous in Ceylon, is still imported from
the adjoining continent, but its growth in this island would be
subject to none of the vicissitudes of climate, that in the course of
a single night have devastated the most extensive plantations in
Bengal, and annihilated the hopes and calculations of the planter at a
time when they had attained all the luxuriance of approaching
maturity.

The district of Tangalle, in the southern province, is the best
adapted to the culture and manufacture of indigo for various reasons,
such as the abundance of the indigenous varieties of the plant, the
similarity of the climate to that of the coast of Coromandel, where
the best indigo is produced; facility of transport by water to either
of the ports of export, Galle or Colombo, during the south-east, or to
Trincomalee by the south-west monsoon; every necessary material is at
hand for building a first rate indigo factory, including drying yards,
leaf godowns (stores), steeping vats and presses, except roof and
floor tiles--which may be obtained in any quantity from Colombo,
during the so