Gunny-bags

Gunny-bags are made of a coarse jute fabric (see JUTE), and are very largely exported from India to various parts of the world. American cotton is largely packed in these. They can be manufactured at a low price, hence the great demand for them. The name gunny is applied to the cloth as well as to the made-up bags. About 1850 the peasant hand-loom of Lower Bengal met both the home and the foreign demand for Indian-made gunny-bags—indeed the making of these was then the great domestic industry of that portion of India, giving occupation to men, women, and children of nearly every class. Even boatmen and domestic servants employed their spare moments at them. At the present time the number made at the great steam-factories, of which there are now twenty-three in India, far exceeds what is produced by hand-loom. For example, in the year 1885, 82,779,207 gunny-bags were exported from India, of which only five millions were woven by hand. In the same year forty millions of these bags were sent from Bengal to other parts of India, and it was estimated that nearly as many were used in Bengal itself. The total value of the Bengal trade in jute manufactures (mainly gunny-bags or cloth) in 1885 was believed to be not far short of £3,000,000. In India gunny-bags are employed for agricultural and internal trade purposes, but many are also sent out of the country filled with grain and other produce. Cloth and bags of the same kind are made in Dundee.