294 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



jute-bagging. The domestic growth of jute would not only benefit the 

 producers aud manufacturers, but it would also impart prosperity to other 

 industries. It would afford an inexhaustible supply of cheap material 

 to the paper-makers. The root-fiber and other refuse portions of the 

 plant, and the worn-out baling, sacks, and carpets, can now be converted 

 into a smooth, strong, Vviiite paper. During the last five years about 

 170,000,000 pounds of jute were made into paper in the United States. 

 The newspapers of the United States ought actively to promote an un- 

 dertaking the success of which would so greatly redound to their osvn 

 advantage. 



It is a costly improvidence to i^ay other nations for staples aud prod- 

 ucts which we can raise and manufacture as cheaply as they can. For 

 all imported jute fabrics we are now i)aying the cost of production 

 in India, the freight to England, the expense of manufacture, the trans- 

 portation to the United States, aud the commissions of all the factors 

 and insurance-agents through whose hands the goods have passed. 

 Millions of dollars arc now annually paid to foreigners for labors that 

 ought to be performed by Americans. We are heedless of the lessons 

 of public economy. A diversity of employments and an industrial in- 

 dependence of other countries will most etficieutly promote the welfare 

 of our own people. It is the true policy of the United States to intro- 

 duce and naturalize the industries of the Old World and to foster the 

 common wealth of the nation by j^aying to American handicraft the 

 millions which are now the rich reward of European skill. The English 

 government finds it very difficult to introduce improved machinery or 

 scientific methods into the agriculture of India. The inert masses resist 

 innovation with a conservatism born of centuries of stagnation. The 

 traditional implements and processes of an earlier age are still used in 

 the tillage of India. The plows and harrows and the machines for 

 spinning and weaving are of the rudest description. The natives are 

 too poor to buy improved tools and too ignorant to use the better 

 methods. They have not analyzed their soils, ascertained the best suc- 

 cession of crops, tested the difierent systems of fertilization, or improved 

 their primitive processes of preparing and manufacturing their staples. 

 In fine, their labor is unintelligent, and therefore iuetiective and un- 

 thrifty. 



An industrial comparison of our Southern States with India greatly 

 encourages our hopes of success iu this new industry. The labor of the 

 South is far more intelligent thdn that of India, and it is constantly 

 under skillful guidance. The southern planters will not follow an an- 

 tediluvian style of agriculture. In India, the best soil is usually devoted 

 to raising jute for the market, and the poorer land is left for the pro- 

 tluction of jute-seed. The natural consequence of this course is the 

 deterioration of the seed: In the United States, on the contrary, a 

 portion of the best land has been reserved ibr seed, and the result is a 

 signal improvement in the quality of the seed. American jute-seed is 

 one-sixth heavier than that of India. The broadcast sowing of Bengal 

 is uneven and wasteful. Our patent drills, saving 10 or 15 pounds of 

 seed to the acre, do the work with far greater rapidity and equality of 

 distribution. The efficiency of our agricultural machinery will more than 

 neutralize the seeming advantage which India possesses in the cheap- 

 ness of its manual labor. It would take tens or hundreds of Indian hands 

 to do the work of one American machine. 



It will be strange, indeed, if the mechanical ingenuity which in some 

 departments of manufacture has triumphed over the cheap skilled labor 

 of Europe, and enabled the United States profitably to export to the 



