Word: jute
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...Sanskrit word for fibre is jhat. In the Indian province of Orissa a tall, reedlike plant called jhut has long been cultivated for its fibre, which is used in making sackcloth and twine. But the best place in India for jute growing is the neighboring province of Bengal, whose alluvial plains between the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers produce at least 85% of the world's crop. Last week while U. S. farmers were harvesting a bumper crop with combines (see p. 15), Bengali farmers with sickles were beginning to cut more than 2,000,000 acres of jute. When...
Fabrics made from jute were unheard of in Europe before 1835, when the first jute yarns were turned out by flax weavers in Dundee, Scotland. Twenty years later most Dundee weavers had given up flax for jute and an Englishman had shipped the first jute spinning machinery to Calcutta. British merchants were not slow to recognize the possibilities in Bengal's ideal climate and magnificent supply of cheap labor (Bengal, with about 50,000,000 inhabitants, is the most densely populated province in India). Working farms of two or three acres apiece, Bengal natives took more land...
Dried, rolled up in drums, sold to middlemen who are noted experts in Oriental extortion, all jute is drawn by bullocks or floated down India's muddy rivers to the colonial city of Calcutta. There it is either bought by British manufacturers or made up for export by pukka ("reliable") balers. Most famed British name in the jute trade is that of Sir David Yule, an extraordinary Scotsman who died in 1928 after making a fortune of $100,000,000 in Calcutta. His dislike of things European relented enough to let him marry an Englishwoman but never to live...
India's jute trade, which the female Yules abhor, was seriously tied up last February when the native workers in 40 out of 69 burlap mills went on strike. Coaxed back to work in May, they are still sore, may strike again this summer. Majority of these mills are British, but one of the largest and most elaborate belongs to the big U. S. jute twine maker, Ludlow Manufacturing Associates, whose main plant is at Ludlow, Mass. This company, which has been making jute products since the Civil War, now has assets of $25,700,000 and last year...
Present Calcutta price for jute is 3¾? per lb.; for burlap, 3¾? per yd. Of all burlap imported from India, about 35% goes for automobile accessories, furniture wrapping and backing for linoleum and carpets. Ford Motor Co. used to buy 1,000,000 yds. a month for Model T upholstery. But the principal use for burlap is in sacks. In 1930 U. S. sack manufacturers made 525,000,000 burlap bags, sold them for $45,000,000. Last year production was 438,000,000 bags, sales $35,000,000. It takes about 1⅓ yds. of burlap...