JUTE 



3194 



JUTLAND 



JUTE 

 Branch, leaves and seed. 



dened the people with heavy taxes. He died 

 in the thirty-eighth year of his reign at the 

 age of eighty-three. 



JUTE, joot, the cheapest of all known fibers, 

 used extensively in making gunny cloth and 

 sacks. This fiber is the product of two closely- 

 related tropical plants of the same family as the 

 bass wood. They are natives of India, which 

 produces the bulk 

 of the world's 

 supple of jute, 

 are cultivated 

 elsewhere in the 

 tropics to a lim- 

 ited extent, in- 

 cluding a small 

 area in the South- 

 ern United States. 

 The stalk grows 

 to a height of 

 twelve or fifteen 

 feet, and bears no 

 branches or leaves 

 except near the 

 top. After the 

 first weeding the 

 plant requires little attention. In India it is cut 

 about three months after sowing, while it is 

 yet in blossom. The stalks, stripped of leaves 

 and branches, are tied in bundles and im- 

 mersed in water until the fiber is loosened by 

 the rotting of the outer bark. This process, 

 called retting, takes from ten to twenty days. 

 The stalks are then beaten to free the fiber 

 from the bark, and the fiber is cleaned and 

 dried. That which is designed for exporta- 

 tion is pressed into bales weighing 300 pounds 

 and upward. 



Jute fiber is long, soft and lustrous, and can 

 easily be spun into coarse threads. It is, how- 

 ever, weaker than hemp, does not bleach well, 

 and when exposed to dampness it loses in 

 strength. Aside from its use in the manufac- 

 ture of gunny cloth, it is employed in the 

 making of coarse curtains, chair coverings and 

 other upholstery fabrics, carpets and burlap; 

 the finest threads are sometimes employed in 

 making imitation silk fabrics. The fiber is 

 also made into fine and coarse twines, small 

 ropes, sash cords and other forms of cordage. 

 Jute butts, the short ends of the stalks, and 

 the rough fibers rejected in the preparation of 

 the fiber, are used extensively in paper making. 



Over 125,000 tons of jute are imported annu- 

 ally into the United States. There are in the 

 country over twenty establishments which 



make a specialty of the manufacture of gunny 

 cloth. The value of their annual product is 

 about $10,795,000. India jute sells for about 

 2^4 cents a pound, a price which makes jute 

 production in the United States unprofitable. 

 Though the plant thrives in the Gulf States, 

 the American planter cannot compete with 

 Eastern growers, because it costs the former 

 vastly more to produce the fiber. 



JUTES, joots, a Teutonic tribe from Den- 

 mark who assisted the Angles and Saxons in 

 their conquest of England in the fifth century. 

 According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the 

 first piratical band that landed on the island 

 (A. D. 449) was a company of Jutes led by 

 Hengist and Horsa. The three tribes took 

 possession of most of the country except the 

 western portion, now called Wales, into which 



BOAT OP THE ANCIENT JUTES 

 Fairly well preserved in a Danish museum. 



the remnant of the British population was 

 forced to retire. The name of the Jutes is still 

 preserved in the peninsula of Jutland, North- 

 ern Denmark. See ANGLO-SAXONS. 



JUT 'LAND, the only portion of Denmark 

 which is a part of the continental area of 

 Europe. The 'remainder of the country con- 

 sists of islands. Jutland forms a peninsula 

 having the Skager-Rak on the north, the North 

 Sea on the west and the Cattegat and Baltic 

 Sea on the east. It was known to the ancients 

 as the Cimbric Peninsula, or Chersonesus 

 (which see). The surface is low and is covered 

 with dreary dunes and heaths, which may have 

 had its effect on the temperament of the Jut- 

 landers, a people of somewhat melancholy dis- 

 position. A continuous sandy beach runs along 

 the west coast, and the east shore is indented 

 with many bays and fjords. A railway line 

 extends through the peninsula, connecting it 

 with Prussian Schleswig on the south. Oats, 

 barley, rye and beetroot are cultivated exten- 

 sively, and the inhabitants are also engaged 

 in cattle raising and dairying. These people 

 have preserved the manners and customs of 

 early times, and they speak the Danish Ian- 



