Thomas Woodhouse

“ The agricultural department of the government of Bengal are now fully alive to the importance of fostering the jute industry by showing conclusively that attention to scientific agriculture will make two maunds of jute grow where only one maund grew before. ”

“ Characteristics.—The characters by which qualities of jute are judged are colour, lustre, softness, strength, length, firmness, uniformity and absence of roots. The best qualities are of a clear whitish-yellow colour, with a fine silky lustre, soft and smooth to the touch, and fine, long and uniform in fibre. When the fibre is intended for goods in the natural colour it is essential that it should be of a light shade and uniform, but if intended for yarns which are to be dyed a dark shade, the colour is not so important. ”

“ In certain districts of Bengal it is the practice to stack the crop for a few days previous to retting in order to allow the leaves to dry and to drop off the stalks. It is stated that the colour of the fibre is darkened if the leaves are allowed to remain on during the process of retting. It is also thought that the drying of the plants before retting facilitates the separation of the fibre. Any simple operation which improves the colour of the fibre or shortens the operation of retting is worthy of consideration. ”

“ Cultivation and Cropping.—Attempts have been made to grow the jute plant in America, Egypt, Africa and other places, but up to the present the fibre has proved much inferior to that obtained from plants grown in India. Here the cultivation of the plant extends from the Hugli through eastern and northern Bengal. The successful cultivation of the plant demands a hot, moist climate, with a fair amount of rain. Too much rain at the beginning of the season is detrimental to the growth, while a very dry season is disastrous. ”

“ The time of sowing extends from the middle of March to the middle of June, while the reaping, which depends upon the time of sowing and upon the weather, is performed from the end of June to the middle of October. The crop is said to be ready for gathering when the flowers appear; if gathered before, the fibre is weak, while if left until the seed is ripe, the fibre is stronger, but is coarser and lacks the characteristic lustre.
The fibre is separated from the stalks by a process of retting similar to that for flax and hemp. ”

“ The builder, which receives its motion from the disk and scroll, from the cones, or from the expanding pulley, has also an intermittingly variable speed. It begins at a maximum speed when the bobbin is empty, is constant for each layer, but decreases as the bobbin fills.
The rove yarn is now ready for the spinning frame, where a further draft of about eight is given. The principles of jute spinning are similar to those of dry spinning for flax. For very heavy jute yarns the spinning frame is not used—the desired amount of twist being given at the roving frame. ”

“ Another type of machine termed the three pair roller jute opener is illustrated in fig. 3. The layers from the different bales are laid upon the feed cloth which carries them up to the rollers, between which the layers are crushed and partly separated. The proximity of the weighted roller or rollers to the fixed ones depends upon the thickness of material passing through the machine. The fibre is delivered by what is called the delivery cloth, and the batcher usually selects small streaks of about 11/2 ℔ to 2 ℔ weight each and passes them on to the attendant or feeder of the softening machine. ”

“ It is easy to see that a certain amount of draft, or drawing out of the sliver, is necessary, otherwise the various doublings would cause the sliver to emerge thicker and thicker from each machine. The doublings play a very important part in the appearance of the ultimate rove and yarn, for the chief reason for doubling threads or slivers is to minimize irregularities of thickness and of colour in the material. In an ordinary case, the total doublings in jute from the breaker card to the end of the second drawing is ninety-six: 12 × 4 × 2 = 96 ”

“ The streaks are sometimes partly softened or crushed by means of a steam hammer during the process of opening the bale, then taken to the “strikers-up” where the different varieties are selected and hung on pins, and then taken to the jute softening machine. The more general practice, however, is to employ what is termed a “bale opener,” or “jute crusher.” The essential parts of one type of bale opener are three specially shaped rollers, the peripheries of which contain a number of small knobs. ”

“ The separated fibre is then made up into bundles ready for sending to one of the jute presses. The jute is carefully sorted into different qualities, and then each lot is subjected to an enormous hydraulic pressure from which it emerges in the shape of the well-known bales, each weighing 400 ℔.
The crop naturally depends upon the quality of the soil, and upon the attention which the fibre has received in its various stages; the yield per acre varies in different districts. Three bales per acre, or 1200 ℔ is termed a 100% crop, but the usual quantity obtained is about 2.6 bales per acre. ”

“ Calcutta has certainly taken a large part of the trade which Dundee held in its former days, but the continually increasing demands for jute fabrics for new purposes have enabled Dundee to enter new markets and so to take part in the prosperity of the trade. ”

“ Seven sticks or chattee weaving-posts, called tanā parā or warp, are fixed upon the ground, occupying the length equal to the measure of the piece to be woven, and a sufficient number of twine or thread is wound on them as warp called tanā. The warp is taken up and removed to the weaving machine. ”

“ This cylinder, which has a high surface speed, carries part of the fibre towards the workers and strippers; the surface speed of the workers being much slower than that of the cylinder. The pins in the two rollers oppose each other, those of the workers being “back-set,” and this arrangement, combined with the relative angle of the pins, and the difference in the surface speeds of the two rollers, results in part of the fibre being broken and carried round by the worker towards the stripper. This, as its name implies, strips the fibre off the worker, and carries it round to the cylinder. ”

“ Dowrah is a strong, harsh and low quality fibre, and is used principally for heavy wefts. Each class is subdivided according to the quality and colour of the material, and each class receives a distinctive mark called a baler’s mark. ”

“ These fine Rio hessian yarns form an important branch of the Dundee trade, and in some weeks during 1906 as many as 1000 bales were despatched to Brazil, besides numerous quantities to other parts of the world. ”