CORCHORUS 



Watering Fibre 



THE JUTE PLANT 



Improvements 

 possible. 



Fraudulent 

 Increase of 

 Weight. 



Machinery. 



Inundated 

 Tracts. 



Personal 



Advantage. 



Manipula- 

 tion. 



Batching. 

 Spinning. 



Purposes. 



Lime used 

 in China. 



have been studying the plant botanically, chemically and agriculturally, 

 so that it is just possible improvements may yet be effected that will give 

 a greatly extended interest to the fibre. Meantime a destructive tendency 

 seems to have been established within the trade, namely fraudulent 

 sprinkling of the cleaned fibre with water and sand in order to increase its 

 weight. And it may well be said that if an enhanced price was the only 

 consequence of this practice, the matter might not be more serious and 

 vexatious than would be involved through having to impose rules of 

 " refraction," but unfortunately the watering directly facilitates the in- 

 jurious tendencies of the fibre, so that the commodity not only requires 

 to be dried and rebaled before it can be shipped, but may have been 

 seriously injured if not utterly ruined. In the opinion of some of the 

 best-informed persons, this new phase is so serious as to threaten the very 

 existence of the industry. The merchants and manufacturers are helpless. 



It cannot be said that the last word has been uttered in favour of 

 machinery as a process of jute-fibre separation. If the weakening con- 

 sequences of retting could be removed, that alone might prove of much 

 value. No experiments of a satisfactory nature have as yet been under- 

 taken with mechanical methods of jute production. But it is quite true 

 as often urged, that the Indian raiyat is too poor to purchase machinery, 

 and that the inundated tracts of jute cultivation are not the most hopeful 

 localities in which to anticipate the establishment of a complex mechanical 

 and technical industry. Still, if by a mechanical or chemical process 

 a greatly improved fibre were secured, the possibilities might be con- 

 siderable. The Natives of India have by no means shown themselves 

 averse to material departures from their time-honoured systems, whenever 

 personal advantage is involved. But this has to be fully demonstrated 

 before they will advance into new phases of old industries. 



Batching and Spinning. An important feature of jute fabrication 

 is the fact that in an initial stage it is crushed by special machinery, and 

 sprinkled the while with water and oil " batching," as this is called. 

 This lessens the harshness and brittleness of the fibre and thus prepares 

 it for spinning. In the Anglo-Indian Review (Oct. 1903) there will be 

 found an instructive article on the Indian Jute Industry, from which 

 the following may be abstracted : " The three main purposes for which 

 jute is used are : (a) for making cloth of different qualities, ranging from 

 substitutes for silk to shirtings, curtains, carpets, or gunnies ; (6) for 

 paper, which is chiefly prepared from the " rejections " and " cuttings " ; 

 and (c) for cordage, which is made from the coarser and stronger qualities. 

 The methods employed in spinning are in the main identical with those 

 used in dealing with the heavy manufactures of flax, the fibre being either 

 hackled or submitted to the breaker and the finishing card, thence passing 

 through the roving frame on to the spinning frame in the ordinary way, 

 though in certain very coarse yarns the material is spun direct on the 

 roving frame." 



In this connection it may be explained that in China, it would seem, 

 lime is largely used in certain stages of the separation and cleaning of 

 jute. No one appears to have described, with any degree of care, 

 the method pursued, so that I am unable to furnish the particulars 

 that would likely prove suggestive to the Indian cultivator and manu- 

 facturer. The subject is, in fact, alluded to here very largely in the hope 

 that the admission of defective knowledge may call forth a fuller account 



422 



