82 SELECT PLANTS FOR INDUSTRIAL CULTURE 



magnificent Fan Palm, like so many others of this noble Order, 

 may prove hardy in extra-tropical latitudes. It resists drought 

 in a remarkable degree, and prospers also on a somewhat saline 

 soil. The stem furnishes starch ; the sap yields sugar ; the 

 fibres of the leaves are converted into ropes, which resist decay 

 in water : it can also be used for mats, hats, baskets and 

 brooms, and many other articles are prepared from the leaves. 

 The inner part of the leaf -stalks serves as a substitute for cork. 

 Mainly, however, this palm is valued for its Carnauba wax, 

 with which the young leaves are coated, and which can be 

 detached by shaking ; it is harder than bees'- wax and is used 

 in candle manufacture. Each tree furnishes about 4 Ibs. 

 annually. In 1862 no less than 2,500,000 Ibs. were imported 

 into Great Britain, realising about 100,000. 



Corchorus acutangulus, Lamarck. 



Tropical Africa, South Asia, and North Australia. This species 

 is specially mentioned by some writers as a jute plant. A 

 particular machine has been constructed by Mr. Le Franc, of 

 New Orleans, for separating the jute fibre. With it a ton of 

 fibre is produced in a day by four men's work, and it leaves no 

 butts or refuse. This apparatus can also be used for other 

 fibre plants. The seeds of the Corchorus, which spontaneously 

 drop, will reiterate the crop. 



Corchorus capsularis, Linne.* 



From India to Japan. One of the principal jute plants. An 

 annual, attaining a height of about a dozen feet, when closely 

 grown, with almost branchless stem. A nearly allied but 

 lower plant, Corchorus Cunninghami, F. v. Mueller, occurs in 

 tropical and sub-tropical East Australia. Jute can be grown 

 where cotton and rice ripen, be it even in localities compara- 

 tively cold in the winter, if the summer's warmth is long and 

 continuous. The fibre is separated by steeping the full-grown 

 plant in water from five to eight days, and it is largely used 

 for rice, wool and cotton bags, carpets and other similar 

 textile fabrics, and also for ropes. About 60,000 tons are 

 annually exported from India to England, and a large quantity 

 also to the United States. Jute is sown on good land, well 

 ploughed and drained, but requires no irrigation, although it 

 likes humidity. The crop is obtained in the course of four or 

 five months, and is ripe when the flowers turn into fruit cap- 

 sules. Good paper is made from the refuse of the fibre. 

 Jute has been found, when planted around cotton fields, to 

 protect them, like hemp, from caterpillars (Hon. T. Watts). 

 In India jute alternates with rice or sugarcane ; as a crop it 



