Naturalisation in Extra-Tropical Countries. 139 



Corchorus acutangulus, Lamarck. 



Tropical Africa, South-Asia and North- Australia. This plant 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. This apparatus can also be used for other fibre- 

 plants. The seeds of the Corchorus, which drop spontaneously, will 

 reproduce the crop. 



Corchorus capsularis, Linn<$.* 



From India to Japan; also in North- West Australia. Oue of the 

 principal jute-plants. An annual, attaining a height of about twelve 

 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 Eastern Australia. Jute can be grown, 

 where cotton and rice ripen, be it even in localities comparatively 

 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; it is largely used for rice, wool- and cotton-bags, 

 carpets and other similar textile fabrics and also for ropes. In 1884 

 Great Britain imported 5,111,000 cwt. of jute, valued at 3,600,000. 

 In 1883 the quantity amounted even to 7,372,000 cwt., of the value 

 of 4,520,000, and a large quantity is also sent to the United States. 

 In late years about 60,000 people have been employed in Indian 

 Jute-factories, the raw material for these being annually nearly three 

 million cwt. ["Journal of the Society of Arts/' July, 1893], Jute is 

 sown on good land, well ploughed and drained, but requires no irriga- 

 tion, although it likes humidity. The crop is obtained in the course of 

 four or five months, and is ripe when the flowers are replaced by fruit- 

 capsules. Good paper is made from the refuse of the fibre. JutG 

 has been found, like hemp, to protect cotton from caterpillars, when 

 planted around fields [Hon. T. Watts]. In India jute often alternates 

 with rice and sugar-cane; as a crop it requires damp soil. It does 

 not require drained land, according to Mr. C. B. Clarke. Unlike 

 cotton, it will bear a slight frost. Under favorable circumstances 

 2,000 to 7,000 Ibs. may be obtained from an acre, according to quality 

 of soil. It is best grown on temporarily flooded ground, as otherwise^ 

 it proves an exhaustive crop. Two hundred million pounds of jute 

 were woven in 1876 in Dundee, and fifty million gunny-bags were 

 exported from Britain in one single year, according to S. Water- 

 house. 



Corchorus olitorius, Linn4.* 



South-Asia and North-Australia. Furnishes, with the foregoing 

 species, the principal supply of jute-fibre. As it also is an annual r 

 it can be brought to perfection in the summers of the warm temperate 

 zone. Can even be grown on mud-banks. It is cut or pulled before 

 much fruit has been formed. The average yield from an acre is 



