312 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



it bears a comparatively high price. The short staple serves for the 

 local manufacturers ; and it may be remarked that a given weight of 

 gunny-bags may be purchased at about the same price as a similar 

 weight of raw material, leaving no apparent margin for spinning and 



weaving." 



Dr. J. Forbes Watson states that 300,000 tons of jute are grown in 

 India, of which upwards of 100,000 tons are exported as gunny-bags, 

 besides 40,000 tons in the raw state. The production admits of un- 

 limited extension. 



The demand for gunny-bags is so great that a London company has 

 established a large manufactory in Calcutta for their manufacture, 

 and about 300,000 has been already expended. Immense numbers 

 are used in the Bombay and Madras Presidencies, and in Penang, 

 Singapore, Batavia, and the whole of the Indian Archipelago, for 

 packing pepper, coffee, sugar, etc. ; on the west coast of South Amer- 

 ica for nitrate of soda, borate of lime, regulus of silver, etc. ; in the 

 Brazils for copper and cotton, and in the United States for packing 

 cotton ; in fact, it is superseding all other materials for this purpose. 



Each gunny-bag weighs on an average two pounds. Gunnies, or 

 pieces of gunny cloth, are usually thirty yards long, and weigh about 

 six pounds. From 6,000,000 to 10,000,000 gunnies, besides some 

 thousand ready-made bags, are exported annually from India, chiefly 

 to North America; 4,000 to 5,000 tons of fibre and rope made of 

 sunn, a similar fibre, are also shipped yearly. 



The whole supply of jute to this country comes to us through Cal- 

 cutta. Cargoes are usually completed with it. It is used in every 

 town in the United Kingdom, and for a great variety of purposes. It 

 has long been extensively employed in the manufacture of coarse 

 goods, such as cheap carpetings, bags, sacks, etc. The high price of 

 flax of late years has also led to its extensive use in yarns hitherto 

 purely flax or tow. It is mixed with the cotton warps of cheap 

 broadcloths, and also with silk, and from its lustre can scarcely be de- 

 tected. In Dundee, Scotland, especially, it is employed in the manu- 

 facture of many fine fabrics, and the quantity now imported into that 

 place is estimated at 40,000 tons annually. The total imports of this 

 fabric have increased rapidly of late years. 



THE HEATHER A NATIVE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Quite a sensation has been created among botanists during the past 

 summer (1861) by the discovery of plants of the Scotch heather 

 (Calluna vulgaris) growing wild in the vicinity of Boston. It has 

 been supposed that no true Ericaceae were indigenous to America, 

 though the large and highly ornamental family of Ericacece is abun- 

 dantly represented by our beautiful native Andromedas, Cassandra, 

 Epifitea, Cassiope, Cleihra, and many other allied plants. 



The only locality in which the heather has been found is in the 

 town of Tewksbury, about five miles south-east of Lowell, and 

 twenty miles north-west from Boston. Examination by Prof. Asa 

 Gray and others seems to leave little room for doubt that the plant in 

 this locality is indigenous, although the only one known in the United 

 States. May not, however, the heather have once existed in pro- 



