The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1885-06-11

ouire to have attractions in quality and
price which will enable it to compete with
other textiles. During the American civil
war. the iute-mills of Dundee were turn
ing out many thousands of yards of cheap
but servieeable fabrics to be used instead
of calico, because the cost of the latter
had gone up little. For some of the
purposes to which it was applied, the jute
did as well as the cotton. But the war
having ended, calico of certain make
and quality became once more trife
cheaper than its rival, and so jute was
quickly beaten out of the field again.
This is an example of the kind of battle
which any fibre new to commerce will
have to fight, unless it possesses some
property of quite exceptional value.
To many persons, is seems a pity that
we cannot utilize a plant which yields
something useful. But the nettle is by
no means the most striking example of a
native plant which might be and yet is
not used in the arts. One or two species
of fern, such as the common bracken, are
greatly more abundant in this country
than the nettle-whole hillsides in many
districts being covered with them. Yet
although a very serviceable paper can be
made from ferns, paper manufacturers pre-
fer to send to the shores of the Mediter-
ranean for species of wild grass to sup
ply their mills. For several years past,
an ingenious Glasgow chemist has been
trying to make marketable gum or jelly
| from the common seaweed, thrown up IN
great abundance on the western coasts of
Scotland We hope he may succeed; but
meanwhile we are sending elsewhere for
what we require of seaweed jelly-even to
far Japan. The peat-mosses OF Ireland
and of Scotland too, for that matter
would furnish an endless number of
beautiful parafine candles, if some great
company with limited liability would only
take the business up-and make the can
dies at trihing loss per pound.
Some of our readers will probably sup
pose that we have given them too hum
bic estimate of the value of the common
nettle as textile material There is no
denying the fact that the tenacity of its
cortical fibres is scarcely if at all inferior
to those of fax or hemp. But how to
grow, spin, and weave them into a sale
able cloth, is problem which has not yet
been solved. Just now, there is a partial
revival of what may be almost called the
ancient art of manufacturing hand made
paper for printed books. In these days,
too many of the fair sex have apparently
discovered that the embroidery when
worked by hand is really more interesting
and beautiful than when it is done by a
machine, supposing that in both cases the
design is of nearly equal merit, 1t seems
also to be dawning on many persons that
earthenware dishes painted by the fingers
have, even when little dauby, kind OF
attraction about them notSpossessed by
those which have their patterns printed
from an engraved copper-plate, and are
therefore all rigidly alike. Possibly.
fashion may carry matters little farther
in this direction, and revive the use OF
textile fabrics spun by the distaff and
spindle, and woven on handlooms. But
by the help of machinery, the labour OF
one woman can nowadays make clothing
for more than a thousand others. A hun
dred years ago, nearly every woman had
to spin the material required for the cloth
ing of her family; but at that same time,
or at least not long before it, those in the
upper ranks had knowledge ofmany use
full and ingenious arts which they no
longer possess. If it were possible but in
part to resuscitate the state of matters
which obtained in these old days, before
spinningjennies, or powerlooms, or lace
making machines were dreamed of, there
would be fully more hope than there is of
people keeping themselves warm by an
external application of the stinging nettle,
in a less heroic way than we are told the
Romans did of old
Nettle-cloth is undoubtedly an excel
lent fabric, but-Will it pay the manufac-
turer? The answer to this is, Not yet
Csambers'S Journal, March 1, 1884.