Hop (Humulus lupulus), sometimes grows wild in hedges and bushes, and is also frequently cultivated. Its stalk, which leans to the right, is eighteen to twenty-four feet high; its petiolate leaves are heart-shaped, with three to five lobes. The blossoms of its stamens form panicles; the female cones stand either singly in the axils of the leaves or in clusters. In these cones a yellow, bitter resin, the hop-powder or lupulin, is secreted, which yields the wort for beer, and is also used by chemists. Hops are cultivated in almost all parts of Europe, especially in England, Germany and Austria. In the United States, California, Oregon, Washington, New York and Wisconsin produce the largest crops.
Hops are added to the malt, liquor, or wort before fermentation and give a bitter flavor to malt liquors. Hops are not exported on a large enough scale to be an important item in commerce.
Jute is an East Indian plant whose fibers are strong, coarse, dark in color and sometimes twelve feet long. The fibers are largely employed in the manufacture of coarse bagging and sacking called gunny cloth. Gunny bags, in which pepper, ginger, sugar, cotton, rice, gums, etc., are shipped are made of it. Jute is also largely mixed with silk, as it has a gloss that can scarcely be distinguished from silk when woven with it. Attempts have been made to manufacture paper out of jute, but it is difficult to bleach it white, and only a coarse kind of brown paper is obtained.
Licorice (Glycyrrhiza) is a plant having long, pliant, sweet roots, and generally creeping rootstocks; pinnate leaves of many leaflets, and terminating in an odd one; and whitish, violet-colored flowers in spikes, racemes, or heads. The roots of licorice depend for the valuable properties [168] on a substance called Glycyrrhizine, allied to sugar, yellow, transparent, uncrystallizable, soluble in both water and alcohol, and forming compounds both with acids and with bases. They are a well-known article of materia medica, and were used by the ancients as in modern times, being emollient, demulcent, very useful in catarrh and irritations of the mucous membrane. It is a native of the south of Europe and of many parts of Asia, as far as China. It is cultivated in many countries of Europe. The only American species grows in the plains of the Missouri.
Ramie is the bast fiber from a plant (Boehmeria nivea), commonly called China grass, or rhea, although fibers from other plants sometimes receive these names. It is usually strong and silky in appearance but difficult to clean and bleach.
It is used largely in China for weaving grass cloth, or Canton linen. The fiber is very difficult to “de-gum.” Many experiments have been made to find a satisfactory process. It is now used in making fabrics which resemble linen, laces, underwear, plushes, etc.
Raphia, a strong and useful fiber is obtained from the leaves of Raphia Ruffia, a palm cultivated in Madagascar, Mauritius, and neighboring islands, and of the Jupati palm, of Brazil. Madagascar raphia is the only important grade. A similar soft fiber used locally is produced in West Africa.
It is exported in considerable amounts from Madagascar and used by gardeners for tying plants; and also for making mats and basketry and in kindergartens.
Rattan is the stem of a species of climbing palm, natives of Asia, though some occur in Australia and in Africa. They have slender, reed-like but solid stems, seldom more than one or two inches in diameter, which grow to great lengths, clambering up among the branches of trees by means of the hooked prickles on the stalks of their leaves. The Indian and Malayan species are the source of the largely-imported rattan canes, used for the seats of chairs, and, in their native countries, for cables and a variety of other purposes.
Sisal (henequen or sisal hemp) is a hard, strong fiber from the leaves of a century plant (Agave rigida). It is cultivated in Yucatan and the Bahamas. Plantations of henequen, or maguey, have been established in Cuba, Hawaii, India, German and British East Africa and the Philippines. The home of the agave plants is Mexico and Central America and this part of the world produces most of these fibers.