It Is Rich River Mud That Produces

First Class Jute

IN view of the fact that jute growing has been suggested for Papua-New Guinea, the following article should be of interest. It is from a recent issue of the New Zealand Journal of Agriculture.

The nearest New Guinea approach to the conditions for jute growing described here, appears to be on the Sepik River with its 5-months period of “high water.”

Or perhaps in the muddy delta country between the mouths of the Fly and Kikori, in Papua.

EASTERN Pakistan produces about two-thirds of the total jute crop and India about a third, and the partition of India has raised problems, as the jute mills are in West Bengal (India), India must purchase raw fibre for her mills and Pakistan must sell fibre to buy food for the jute culti vators. The devaluation of sterling and the Indian rupee has brought further problems. Indian mills are refusing to buy raw jute, as they claim that the price on the new basis of exchange is uneconomic.

The rich soil of the Ganges delta and the humid weather* heavy monsoon rains, and annual low-rising inundation lasting five months experienced there form an ideal environment for growing first-class jute. Jute can be, and Is, grown on dry land where there is a humid climate and very heavy rain fall, but the quality of the fibre is in ferior.

Thousands of acres of jute are put down in February. The land is reduced to a fine tilth by being ploughed and cross-ploughed five times with age-old wooden ploughs drawn by cattle. Bam boo tine harrows are used to break down the lumps that are soft, but the big, hard ones are pulverised by a man with a type of wooden mallet, who follows the plough and smashes the lumps one by one.

Though primitive, this method of culti vation is effective and is feasible where labour is so plentiful and so cheap.

The crop, which is hardy and a vigor ous grower, makes rapid headway. It is weeded and thinned by hand, the op erators using a type of trowel. By June the long, thin stalks (one to each plant) are 3 ft. to 4 ft. high. Thinnings are often used as a vegetable. In June the water rises and when this occurs no more weeding or cultivation is done. The plant grows ahead of the water rise and thrives in water.

In early August a very light cutting is made and, as the cutting must be at ground level, the cutter often has to reach down under the water as he works.

By the end of the month the main cut ting is in full swing. The cut jute is tied in bundles and built into rafts, which are floated to quiet and safe water and sunk there under green weeds or sods. It remains retting in the water for three weeks, after which it is taken up on to the nearest high land, usually a road, and the long fibre stripped from the central pith, which is kept for fire wood and for use as house walls.

Men, women, and children help with the stripping, with which is associated a stench from the decayed vegetable mat ter and muddy water that pervades the countryside.

After stripping, the fibre, which is as long as the plant (6 ft. to 12 ft.), is washed by being swirled rapidly from side to side in water. Its white nature then begins to show and after it has been dried in the sun a good fibre shows white and clean and looks like a flax

fibre, though it is much softer and more easily worked.

By mid-September the higher fields from which jute has been cut have been “ploughed” again, which means that the knee-deep mud is stirred, and young rice plants are sown by hand. Rice, which is harvested from these fields in December and January, is a subsidiary crop to the main crop sown earlier.

SO much jute is grown in East Ben gal that rice must be imported or there would be wide-scale starva tion. The main wealth of eastern Paki stan comes from the sale of jute fibre.

Because of the situation which has arisen jute producers are already hard hit.

It has been suggested that the Pakis tan Government should purchase the whole of the jute crop. Pakistan has been trying to purchase jute mills and, ! though India is unco-operative, the [ Pakistan administration hopes to secure machinery from Dundee, which is an important jute-manufacturing centre.

Pakistan will undoubtedly forge ahead with the building up of her own jute industry, which will assist in solving her unemployment problem and in rais ing the economic level of the country.

India is increasing her jute acreage, but there is not an unlimited market for jute, as cheaper substitutes are appear ing. It would appear that the jute in dustry is likely to be centred in East Bengal.