JUTE-CULTURE. 



By Professor S. Waterhouse, 

 Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, 



The recommendations of the Department of Agriculture first attracted 

 my attention to this fiber, and the personal observations of a revisit to 

 India have only confirmed my sense of its national importance. 



Jute has been cultivated in India for hundreds of years, but it is only 

 within the last half century that it has entered largely into the com- 

 merce and industries of foreign nations. In the culture of jute, a warm, 

 humid climate is essential to success ; but the physical characteristics 

 of the soils in which the plant flourishes greatly vary. It thrives with 

 an almost equal luxuriance upon highlands or alluvial bottoms. It will 

 grow upon comparatively dry uplands or in flooded valleys. But it pre- 

 fers a high, moist, sandy loam. Alluvial mold, in which there is a 

 liberal admixture of sand, is favorable to its growth ; but a very dry 

 or a very sandy soil is not adapted to this tillage. 



The land intended for this crop is usually broken up in the fall. 

 With unwearied industry, the natives plow the land over and over 

 again — in some instances as many as twenty times — until the soil has 

 been thoroughly pulverized, deeply exposed to sun and air, and richly 

 manured. The seed is sown broadcast, from 20 to 30 pounds to the acre. 



The time of sowing varies with the conditions of soil and climate. 

 In the northeastern provinces of Bengal, where nearly all of the jute of 

 India is raised, the seed is sown in February, March, and April. In 

 the vicinity of Calcutta, the seed is often planted as late as July. 

 Sometimes two crops are raised in a season, but this is too exhausting 

 to the soil. After the jute has come up, it is carefully thinned and then 

 left, without much further tillage, to ripen. It matures in twelve or 

 fifteen weeks. The plant sometimes grows to the height of 20 feet, but 

 its average height is 10 or 12 feet, and the diameter of the butts varies 

 from half an inch to an inch and a half. One variety which is exten- 

 sively cultivated has a smooth white bark and wide-spreading branches. 

 In the northern provinces of Bengal, the average yield is from 2,000 to 

 3,000 pounds an acre ; in the neighborhood of Calculta, it is from 500 to 

 1,000 pounds. In the north of the Bengal Presidency, the quantity of 

 seed raised per acre is 1,000 or 1,100 pounds ; in the south, it is 1,400 or 

 1,500 pounds. The jute is cut while the plant is in flower, because the 

 fiber is then more glossy and less woody. The seed ripens one month 

 after flowerage, and the fiber has then become so woody as to lose much 

 of its commercial value. After cutting, the jute is usually kept two or 

 three days, till the leaves fall off, and then it is immersed in water. The 

 period of submersion varies, according to the temperature and character 

 of the water, from three or four days to a month. The methods of steep- 

 ing practiced by the natives are various. The fiber prepared in clear 

 running water is strong, white, and glossy ; the process, however, lasts 

 for several weeks. But when the jute is soaked in stagnant water, 

 although the disintegration is usually effected within ten days, yet the 

 fiber is apt to be weaker and more discolored. But in either case the 

 19 A 28& 



