CH. X] FIBRE- YIELDING PLANTS 113 



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 surrounding 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 

 in 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 consequently 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. 



w. 8 



