INDIAN I'oTUKKIi 



CORCHORU3 



Jute 



. H min' it very possibly bo more accurately treated as varieties of the present. 

 it it is hardly matter for surprise that a pot-herb, mot with throughout the 

 >picul regions of the glol>, and which has existed at least for centuries under Pot-herb. 



ultivation, should have assumed a multiplicity of varieties and races; in 

 fact the comparative paucity of Indian forms is a significant circumstance. In 

 India it is inv ari.iMy found on high and dry land, hardly ever under the inundation 

 mdispeiiKuMe with < . I-HII-H inri*. It is admittedly inferior as a source of jute. Inferior Jute. 

 and is never eult iv .it eil where i: ! i>*titti i-i* \ possible. But it occasionally 

 nrows taller than even some of the forms of *'. mitMHiiirt*. such as the deawal; 

 it prefers sandy looms, and takes a longer time to come to maturity (September Season. 

 id ( >etol>or, the deswal season being July). 



I ii t he Kow Herbarium there are numerous interesting samples of this specie* Herbarium 

 lal>els of which occasionally bear instructive notes, a few of which may Specimen*. 

 here quoted: From India Madras, cultivated in gardens ; Mysore (Rottler's 

 ii haa the note that paper is made from it in Bengal) ; Lower Bengal, 

 iv : Burma, Ava (Wall, herb.) ; Belgaum, Ritchie's, said to be eaten but not 

 Itivated, though always found near cultivation ; Moradabad ; Amballa, in 

 folds ; Kumaon, up to 4,000 feet ; Nepal ; Simla, up to 4,000 feet in fields, 

 ghanistan, roadsides and fields ; Sind, occasionally. From China Yunnan. 

 >m Ceylon, up to 3,000 feet. From Africa and Egypt Liberia (Sir H. H. Johnston 

 itributes a plant with very large smooth fruits, and narrow, thick, and sharply 

 rate leaves) ; Angola ; Senegambia ; Sierra Leone, cultivated ; Zambesi 

 jrnacular name terere = eaten) ; Niger river, in fields; Kordofan, edges of 

 Ids ; Khartoum ; Lake Nyassa ; Cross River, Old Calabar. From Madagascar. 

 the West Indies Cuba and Jamaica, cultivated from Calcutta seed. From 

 lauritius, introduced before 1864, now a weed. From Java, Philippines, etc. 

 Australia Alligator River (leaves very narrow), etc., etc. 



CULTIVATION IN INDIA. 



History. The history of the modern jute industry is exceedingly interesting History, 

 id at the same time closely associated with the British rule in India. There can 

 little doubt jute fibre has been known in India from comparatively ancient 

 les, but the confusion that existed, almost down to the middle of the 19th 

 itury, in the use of the words san, bhanga, pat, goni, gania (gunny), hemp, etc., 

 iders it often a matter of supreme uncertainty what particular fibre may have 

 an indicated by the majority of writers who use one or other of these names, 

 would seem more than probable that son-hemp (the fibre of Crotalarla juncea, 

 pp. 430-7) was better or earlier known to the ancient Hindus than were jute or 

 /en the true hemp (Cannabis sativa, see pp. 251-5). Moreover, it is almost safe 

 assume that for many centuries the names mentioned were used almost 

 lonymously, just as in modern commerce there ore perhaps a dozen widely 

 lerent fibres all called hemp. Hence also the expression, frequently met with 

 Indian modern trade returns, of " hemp other than jute," which shows that 

 ite was viewed as but a form of hemp that it had been found desirable to record 

 ider a separate heading. The first commercial mention of the word " jute " occurs 

 >parently in the returns for 1828, and it seems fairly certain the vernacular 

 ime pat had by then been fixed as the equivalent of jute. In the Bengal Board Early Trade 

 Trade, consultations for January 14, 1793, for example, we read of the con- 

 lued efforts mode to establish Indian hemp as a recognised trade fibre. This is 

 aproduced by Robert Wissett (Treatise on Hemp, 1808, 23) and again in Milburn's 

 'ental Commerce (1813, i., 283 ; ii., 209-11). The returns quoted in the last- 

 lentioned work are for the years 1786 to 1803. It is pointed out that there were 

 rious qualities of hemp such as " sann, ghore-sann and the paut," which last, as 

 " it does not grow to the height of above 4 feet ... is not a profitable article 

 the landholder." " The leaves and tender shoots are used as an article of 

 x>d." The plant in question was in all probability r. uiittn-tnu. But, farther 

 allusion is made to " cooch-murden-paut and amleeah-paut " ; the former may 

 ive been <'. !>* /i-i*, and the. latter no doubt was miiincttn rnnntiinnit*. 

 Lbout the period indicated the East India Company made a great effort to 

 "scover a good substitute for Russian hemp, to be employed in the manufacture 

 of ropes and sail canvas. This led to many practical and useful discoveries. 

 Roxburgh wrote in the Transactions of the Society of Arts a paper on the 

 culture, properties and comparative strength of hemp and other vegetable fibres, 

 the growth of the East Indies ( 1804, xxii., 363-96; 1806, xxiv., 143-56). In a letter 

 to the Court of Directors of the Company (dated 1795) he used the word "jute." 



409 



Confusion in 



Names. 



First Mention 

 of 



