CH. X] FIBRE-YIELDING PLANTS 111 



annual, growing to a height of about eight feet, and succeeding 

 best in a hot damp climate on the outer margin of the tropics, 

 as in Bengal. 



The plants are sown annually, and allowed to grow for three 

 or four months, when they reach their full height, and are then 

 cut with the sickle. They are stood upright for one or two 

 days in a foot or two of water, and are then laid down in the 

 water much as flax is treated in the north of Ireland. The 

 object of first standing the lower parts in water is to give them 

 the start in retting, as they are said to ret more slowly than 

 the higher parts of the stem. The fibre is afterwards beaten 

 out from the decayed softer tissues that lie between. It is 

 thus a stem fibre that is used in jute, and not a fibre surround- 

 ing the seed, as in cotton. A good average yield is from 1200 

 to 3000 Ibs. of fibre from an acre of land, a much larger yield 

 than the case of cotton. 



The consumption of jute is enormous, it being mainly used 

 in the making of the well-known gunny bags in which cotton, 

 rice, etc., are transported. The fibres are very long and 

 silky, but will not stand exposure to the wet, and it is con- 

 sequently not used for cordage. It is now extensively used in 

 making cloth, curtains, carpets, and many other things, being 

 very easy to spin. The total export from India averages about 

 15,000,000 cwt. a year, the product of about 1,000,000 acres of 

 land. In the early part of the last century, Dundee made itself 

 the centre of the jute industry, and large mills were established 

 there, but of late more and more mills have been opened in or 

 near Calcutta, and Dundee is steadily losing its pre-eminence. 



The chief directions in which improvement in this culti- 

 vation are to be looked for are perhaps in the greater use of 

 the residue, after extraction of the fibre, as manure, in green 

 manuring (possibly), and in the proper rotation of the crop with 

 something else. Fortunately the selection of the seed is not at 

 present an all-important matter, as in the case of cotton, or it 

 would be but a poor look-out for the native cultivators, who at 

 present deal with this fibre. At the same time it is probable 

 that a good deal might be done by selecting seed of the plants 

 that bear the best, longest, and silkiest fibres. 



