236 THE FLOEIST AND 
and in Palestine. It is the plant mentioned by Job (xxx. 4,) as eaten in 
his time bj the poor and outcast, such as the Jews are now even in their 
own land : " Who eat up mallows by the bushes and juniper roots for their 
meat." 
Small and herbaceous in the dry soil of Syria, it grows to a height of 
four or five feet in the north of India ; while in the hot moist climate of 
Bengal, it attains to twelve or even fifteen feet. In India, the leaves and 
tender shoots are partially cultivated as an article of food, and eaten both 
hj Mussulmans and by Hindoos. But for its fibre also it is extensively 
cultivated in the d^lta of Bangal, and is spun almost universally by the 
native Hindoos. It is an annual plant, sown in April or May, and cut 
down when in flower, from the end of July to the middle of September. It 
is then steeped, as we do with flax, for eight or ten days, when the flbre is 
stripped off and washed. The produce of marketable fibre varies from four 
hundred to 'Seven hundred pounds an acre. The best qualities are worth in 
in this country from £16 to ,£17 a ton. 
The culture of this plant in the delta of Bengal is far more extensive 
than that of any other from which a useful fibre is obtained. Its easy 
culture, rapid growth, and comparatively large produce present advantages 
not to be overlooked by the economical and eminently practical natives 
of Bengal. 
" The great trade and principal employment of Jute is for the manufac- 
ture of gunnychuts or chuttees ; that is, lengths suitable for making cotton 
or sugar bags. This industry forms the grand domestic manufacture of all 
the populous eastern districts of Lower Bengal. It pervades all classes, 
and penetrates into every household. Men, women, and children find occu- 
pation therein. Boatmen, in their spare moments, husbandmen, palankeen- 
carriers, and domestic servants — everybody, in fact, being Hindoos — for 
Mussulmans spin cotton only — pass their leisure moments, distaff in hand, 
spinning gunny twist. Its preparation, together with the weaving into 
lengths, forms the never-failing resource of that most humble, patient, and 
despised of created beings, the Hindoo widow, saved by law from the pile, 
but condemned by opinion and custom for the remainder of her days lite-» 
rally to sackcloth and ashes, and the lowest domestic drudgery in the very 
household where once, perhaps, her will was law. This manufacture spares 
her from being a charge on her family ; she can always earn her bread. 
Amongst these causes will be discerned the very low prices at which 
Gunny manufactures are produced in Bengal, and which have attracted 
the demand of the whole commercial world. There is, perhaps, no other 
article so universally diffused over the globe as the Indian gunny bag. All 
the finer ami long-stapled Jute is reserved for the export trade, in which it 
bears a comparatively high price. The short staple serves for the local 
manufactures, and it may be remarked, that a given weight of gunny 
