The subsequent rapid growth of the industry, and the
demand for newer types of cloth, are perhaps due more to the above
fortunate experiment than to any other circumstance.

By the year or season 1850-51, the British imports of jute fibre had
increased to over 28,000 tons, and they reached 46,000 tons in the
season 1860-61. Attention meanwhile had been directed to the
possibility of manufacturing jute goods by machinery in India--the
seat of the cultivation and growth of the fibre. At least such a
probability was anticipated, for in the year 1858 a small
consignment of machinery was despatched to Calcutta, and an attempt
made to produce the gunny bags which were typical of the Indian
native industry.

The great difference between the more or less unorganized hand
labour and the essential organization of modern mills and factories
soon became apparent, for in the first place it was difficult to
induce the natives to remain inside the works during the period of
training, and equally difficult to keep the trained operatives
constantly employed. Monetary affairs induced them to leave the
mills and factories for their more usual mode of living in the
country.

In the face of these difficulties, however, the industry grew in
India as well as in Dundee. For several years before the war, the
quantity of raw jute fibre brought to Dundee and other British ports
amounted to 200,000 tons. During the same period preceding the war,
nearly 1,000,000 tons were exported to various countries, while the
Indian annual consumption--due jointly to the home industry and the
mills in the vicinity of Calcutta--reached the same huge total of
one million tons.

The growth of the jute industry in several parts of the world, and
consequently its gradually increasing importance in regard to the
production of yarns and cloth for various purposes, enables it to be
ranked as one of the important industries in the textile group, and
one which may perhaps attain a much more important position in the
near future amongst our national manufacturing processes. As a
matter of fact, at the present time, huge extensions are
contemplated and actually taking place in India.

CHAPTER II. CULTIVATION

_Botanical and Physical Features of the Plant_. Jute fibre is
obtained from two varieties of plants which appear to differ only in
the shape of the fruit or seed vessel. Thus, the fruit of the
variety _Corchorus Capsularis_ is enclosed in a capsule of