Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, November 1898

In China, Korea, and Japan the sandal has a bifurcated toe cord, the base of which, springing from the front of the sandal, passes between the first and second toes. It belongs to the Old World through its entire extent. It is the only form represented in ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek sculpture. One would have expected that with any close contact with Asian people this method of holding the sandal to the foot would have been established in Central America, yet one may seek in vain for the evidences of even a sporadic introduction of this method. Where representations are given in the sculptured stone pottery, or codex, the sandal is represented with two cords, one passing between the first and second and the other between the third and fourth toes. Dr. Otis T. Mason, who has given us an exhaustive monograph of the foot gear of the world, says that every authority on Mexico and Central America pictures the sandal with two cords, and he further says, in a general article on the same subject, "An examination of any collection of pottery of middle America reveals the fact at once, if the human foot is portrayed, that the single toe string was not anciently known."

The Thibetans, Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese have used the serviceable carrying stick from time immemorial. The nearest approach to this method in this country is seen in Guadalajara, where a shoulder piece is used to carry jars. The representation of this method shows that the pole rests across the back in such a manner that the load is steadied by both the right and left hand simultaneously – identical, in fact, with methods in vogue to-day through western Europe. We find, however, the northern races, as the Ainu and Kamchadels, use the head band in carrying loads, and this method has been depicted in ancient American sculpture. The carrying stick, so peculiarly Asiatic, according to Dr. Mason, is not met with on this continent.

With the evidences of Asiatic contact supposed to be so strong in Central America, one might have imagined that so useful a device as the simple chopsticks would have secured a footing. These two sticks, held in one hand and known in China as "hasteners or nimble lads," are certainly the most useful, the most economical, and the most efficient device for their purposes ever invented by man. Throughout that vast Asian region, embracing a population of five hundred million, the chopstick is used as a substitute for fork, tongs, and certain forms of tweezers. Even fish, omelet, and cake are separated with the chopsticks, and the cook, the street scavenger, and the watch repairer use this device in the form of iron, long bamboo, and delicate ivory. The bamboo chopstick was known in China 1000 B.C., and shortly after this date the ivory form was devised. Their use is one of great antiquity in Japan, as attested by references to it in the ancient records of that country. One may search in vain for the trace of any object in the nature of a chopstick in Central or South America. Knitting needles of wood are found in the work baskets associated with ancient Peruvian mummies, but the chopstick has not been found. Curious pottery rests for the chopsticks are exhumed in Japan, but even this enduring testimony of its early use is yet to be revealed in this country.

The plow in all its varieties has existed in China for countless centuries. Its ideograph is written in a score of ways. It was early introduced into Korea and Japan, and spread westward through the Old World to Scandinavia. There it has been found in the peat bogs. It is figured on ancient Egyptian monuments, yet it made its appearance in the New World only with the advent of the Spaniards. This indispensable implement of agriculture when once introduced was instantly adopted by the races who came in contact with the Spaniards. Even in Peru, with its wonderful agricultural development and irrigating canals, no trace of this device is anciently known, and to-day the tribes of Central and South America still follow the rude and primitive model first introduced by their conquerors.

If we study the musical instruments of the New World races we find various forms of whistles, flutes, rattles, split bells, and drums, but seek in vain for a stringed instrument of any kind. This is all the more surprising when we find evidences of the ancient use of the bow. If Dr. Tylor is right, we may well imagine that the lute of ancient Egypt was evolved from the musical bow with its gourd resonator (so common in various parts of Africa), and this in turn an outgrowth of the archer's bow, or, what at the moment seems quite as probable, the musical bow might have been the primitive form from which was evolved the archer's bow on the one hand and the lute on the other. Dr. Mason, in a brief study of the musical bow, finds it in various forms in Africa and sporadic cases of it in this country, and expresses the conviction that stringed musical instruments were not known to any of the aborigines of the western hemisphere before Columbus. Dr. Brinton is inclined to dispute this conclusion, though I am led to believe that Dr. Mason is right; for had this simple musical device been known anciently in this country, it would have spread so widely that its pre-Columbian use would have been beyond any contention. In Japan evidences of a stringed instrument run back to the third or fourth century of our era, and in China the kin (five strings) and seih (thirteen strings) were known a thousand years before Christ. These were played in temples of worship, at religious rites, times of offering, etc. It seems incredible that any contact sufficient to affect the religious customs of Mexico or Central America could have occurred without the introduction of a stringed instrument of some kind.[3]

In the Ceremonial Usages of the Chinese (1100 B.C.), a work already referred to, one may find allusions to a number of forms of wheeled carriages, with directions for their construction. Minute details even are given as to material and dimensions, such as measuring the spoke holes in the rim with millet seed (reminding one of the modern method of ascertaining the cubic contents of crania), all indicating the advanced development of wheeled vehicles. If from this early date in China up to the fifth century A.D., any people had found their way from China to middle America, one wonders why the wheel was not introduced. Its absence must be accounted for. It was certainly not for lack of good roads or constructive skill. Its appearance in this hemisphere was synchronous with the Spanish invasion, and when once introduced spread rapidly north and south. Like the plow, it still remains to-day the clumsy and primitive model of its Spanish prototype.

The potter's wheel is known to have existed in Asia from the earliest times; the evidence is not only historical, but is attested by the occurrence of lathe-turned pottery in ancient graves. We look in vain for a trace of a potter's wheel in America previous to the sixteenth century. Mr. Henry C. Mercer regards a potter's device used in Yucatan as a potter's wheel, and believes it to have been pre-Columbian. This device, known as the kabal, consists of a thick disk of wood which rests on a slippery board, the potter turning the disk with his feet. The primitive workman uses his feet to turn, hold, and move objects in many operations. The primitive potter has always turned his jar in manipulation rather than move himself about it. Resting the vessel on a block and revolving it with his feet is certainly the initial step toward the potter's wheel, but so simple an expedient must not be regarded as having any relation to the true potter's wheel, which originated in regions where other kinds of wheels revolving on pivots were known.

It seems reasonable to believe that had the Chinese, Japanese, or Koreans visited the Mexican coast in such numbers as is believed they did, we ought certainly to find some influence, some faint strain, at least, of the Chinese method of writing in the hitherto unfathomable inscriptions of Maya and Aztec. Until recently it was not known whether they were phonetic or ideographic; indeed, Dr. Brinton has devised a new word to express their character, which he calls ikonomatic. This distinguished philologist of the American languages confesses that not even the threshold of investigation in the solution of these enigmatical puzzles has been passed. Had the Chinese introduced or modified or even influenced in any way the method of writing as seen on the rock inscriptions of Central America, one familiar with Chinese might have found some clew, as was the case in deciphering the ancient writings of Assyria and Egypt. Grotefend's work on cuneiform inscriptions and Champollion's interpretation of Egyptian came about by the assumption of certain inclosures representing historic characters, which were revealed in one case by an inference and in another by an accompanying Greek inscription. If we examine the early Chinese characters as shown on ancient coins of the Hea dynasty (1756 to 2142 B.C.), or the characters on ancient bronze vases of the Shang dynasty (1113 to 1755 B.C.), we find most of them readily deciphered by sinologists, and coming down a few centuries later the characters are quite like those as written to-day. On some of the many inscribed stone monuments of Central America one might expect to find some traces of Chinese characters if any intercourse had taken place, whereas the Maya glypts are remotely unlike either Chinese or Egyptian writing. Some acute students of this subject are inclined to believe that these undecipherable characters have been evolved from pictographs which were primarily derived from the simple picture writing so common among the races of the New World.

It seems clearly impossible that any intercourse could have taken place between Asia and America without an interchange of certain social commodities. The "divine weed," tobacco, has been the comfort of the races of the western hemisphere north and south for unnumbered centuries: stone tobacco pipes are exhumed in various parts of the continent; cigarettes made of corn husks are found in ancient graves and caves; the metatarsals of a deer, doubly perforated, through which to inhale tobacco or its smoke in some form, are dug up on the shores of Lake Titicaca.

The question naturally arises why tobacco was not carried back to Asia by some of the returning emigrants, or why tea was not introduced into this country by those early invaders. A Buddhist priest without tea or tobacco would be an anomaly. There are many other herbs, food plants, etc., that should not have waited for the Spanish invasion on the one hand, or the Dutch and Portuguese navigator along the Chinese coast on the other.

Finally, if evidences of Asiatic contact exist, they should certainly be found in those matters most closely connected with man, such as his weapons, clothing, sandals, methods of conveyance, pottery making and devices thereon, musical instruments, and above all house structure and modes of burial. More remote perhaps would be survivals of language, and if the invaders had a written one, the characters, whether phonetic or ideographic, would have been left in the enduring rock inscriptions. If now a study of the aborigines of the western hemisphere from Hudson Bay to Tierra del Fuego fails to reveal even a remote suggestion of resemblance to any of these various matters above enumerated, their absence must in some way be accounted for by Asiaticists.

THE POSSIBLE FIBER INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES

By CHARLES RICHARDS DODGE

The wealth of any community is dependent on the variety and extent of its industries, the utilization of local natural resources, and the employment of the labor of all classes of its population. In locations of successful industrial operations the farmer derives increased incomes, the value of his products is greater, his lands of higher value, and the wages of agricultural labor larger. The rural population contiguous to large towns, therefore, is more prosperous than the larger farming contingent more remote from manufacturing or industrial centers. The farmers of the first class are prosperous because they have a home market for their dairy products, fruits, vegetables, and other "truck," which they are able to produce, for the most part, on small areas by high culture, while those of the second class are forced to expend their energies on commercial commodities such as cotton, wool, meat, grain, etc., with long hauls in transportation, and with heavy competition, international as well as domestic.

In times of depression, or when competition has grown too heavy, the cultivation of certain staples may cease to be remunerative, and the unfortunate producer is compelled to diversify his agriculture, or adopt some other means of livelihood.

Just such a misfortune has overtaken many farmers in the United States within the past few years. Within two years, in fact, wheat has been a drug in the market, while corn has been cheaper in some sections than coal, and cotton is now so low that it hardly pays to grow it, without considering the necessity, for the Southern farmer, of competing against the seventy-five thousand bales of Egyptian cotton which enter our ports in a year. Confronted with these conditions, there never has been a time when farmers were more anxious to discover new paying crops. Among the possible new rural industries that have attracted the attention of the agricultural class is that of fiber production, though the growth of certain kinds of fibers in past time has been a source of income to the country. Already there is a widespread interest in the subject throughout the West and South, and farmers are only seeking information regarding the particular practice involved in the cultivation of flax, ramie, and other fibers, cost of production, market, etc., but many are asking where the proper seed can be secured with which to make a start.

The importation of unmanufactured flax, hemp, textile grasses, and other fibers amounts annually to a sum ranging from fifteen million to twenty million dollars, while the imported manufactures of these fibers amount to almost double this value, or, in round numbers, approximately forty-five million dollars. With the establishment and extension of three or four fiber industries in this country, and with the new manufacturing enterprises that would grow out of such establishment and extension, an immense sum could be readily saved to the country, and the money representing the growth of these fibers would add just so much to the wealth of the farming class.

There are two ways in which we may arrive at a solution of this problem: by direct Government aid, and through the intelligently directed efforts of private enterprise.

Government experiments for the development or extension of vegetable fiber industries have been instituted, at different times, in many countries. In some instances these have been confined to testing the strength of native fibrous substances for comparison with similar tests of commercial fibers. Such were the almost exhaustive experiments of Roxburgh in India early in the present century. Another direction for Government experimentation has been the testing of machines to supersede costly hand labor in the preparation of the raw material for market, or in the development of chemical processes for the further preparation of the fibers for manufacture. The broadest field of experiment, however, has been the growth of the plants under different conditions, either to introduce their culture, or to economically develop the industries growing out of their culture, when such industries need to be fostered. The introduction of ramie culture is an example of the first instance, the fostering of the almost extinct flax industry of our grandfathers' days an illustration of the second.

The United States has conducted experiments or instituted inquiries in the fiber interest at various times in the last fifty years, but it is only since 1890 that an office of practical experiment and inquiry has been established by the United States Department of Agriculture, that has been continuous through a term of years.

A Cotton Field in Mississippi.

In the present work the efforts of the Government have been mainly directed in the line of collecting and disseminating authoritative information relating to all branches of the industry, in importing proper seed for experimental cultivation, and in directing experiments, either on its own account or in co-operation with State and even private interests. The testing of new labor-saving machinery has also come within its province.

The subject in its details will be better understood by considering the list of the more important commercial fibers known to our market. The list is not a long one, for it barely reaches a total of fifteen species. The fibers of the first rank are the spinning fibers – namely, cotton, flax, hemp, jute; of the second rank, or cordage fibers, Sisal, Manila, Sunn and Mauritius hemps, and New Zealand flax; and of the third rank, Tampico, or ixtle, African fiber or palmetto, coir or cocoanut, piassaba, Mexican whisk, raffia, and Spanish moss, which are used in brush manufacture, in upholstery, and for other rough manufactures. Of these fifteen forms, only cotton, hemp, palmetto, and Spanish moss are produced in the United States in commercial quantity, though flax line has been produced to some extent in the past. Of those not produced in commercial quantity in this country, but which would thrive in cultivation, may be mentioned jute, New Zealand flax, Sisal hemp, cocoanut, and possibly Sunn hemp in subtropical Florida, with a few "substitutes," which will be mentioned hereafter.

I have neglected to mention in this list the sponge cucumber, a species of Luffa used as a bath sponge, which is imported from Japan in quantity, and which grows in the United States.

Passing the list of recognized commercial fibers, we come to a large number of species, forms allied to the above, that are either employed locally, chiefly by the natives in the countries where grown, or that would be capable of employment in the world's manufacture were they not inferior to the standard commercial forms at present recognized, and with which they would necessarily compete at a disadvantage. This list is a long one, for in the single genus Agave, to which belong the plant producing the Sisal hemp of commerce, there are over one hundred species in Mexico alone, more than one half of which would produce good fiber. In our own country it would be possible to enumerate twenty species of plants that are recognized as American weeds, the fibers of which could be employed as hemp, flax, or jute substitutes were these materials unobtainable, besides half as many structural fiber plants similar to the agave, the products of which could be employed as cordage fiber substitutes in the same manner. Many of these uncultivated plants have been known to the aborigines for years, possibly for centuries, as we find their fiber, produced in varied forms of rude manufacture, in ancient tombs or other burial places.

Pulling Flax in Minnesota.

After exhausting the list of plants that may be termed commercial fiber substitutes, in different countries where they grow, there still remains a much larger list of species that are chiefly interesting in a scientific enumeration of those plants which produce in their stalks, leaves, or seed vessels what may be termed fibrous substance. My own catalogue of the fibers of the world already foots up over one thousand species of plants, and the complete catalogue for all countries might extend the list to a thousand more.

In considering the undeveloped fibers of the United States, it will be seen we should only recognize the actual commercial forms which we do not produce, but which may be produced within our borders, or such native growths as may be economically employed as their substitutes, and which possibly might be brought into commercial importance.

The hemp industry is already established, though it should be extended in order to recover its lost position among American rural industries. Where in the past we produced forty thousand tons of hemp in the United States, we now produce less than a fifth of this quantity. The cultivation of flax in the United States before the days of the present factory system was so widespread that it was of national importance. Its manufacture was largely a home industry, however, conducted by the fireside, and, as in ancient Greece and Rome, the work was performed by the women of the household. With the advent of the factory system came competition; the housewife laid aside her spinning wheel, the clumsy home-made loom fell into disuse, and the farmer grew no more flax for fiber. Then the flaxseed industry was extended, and after the close of the war a large demand sprang up for coarse fiber for the roughest of uses – for bagging and upholstery, in connection with hemp – and hundreds of little tow mills came into existence in the Middle and Western States.

The introduction of jute opened another chapter, and the decline of this crude attempt at a flax industry is recorded. Meanwhile some line flax was produced, but the extension of spinning and weaving establishments made a larger demand for this fiber, which was chiefly imported. Land in the old flax-growing States became more valuable for other crops, especially with the low prices brought about by foreign competition, and gradually the flax culture in the United States became a thing of the past.

Hackling Flax.

In recent years similar causes have served to operate against the industry in foreign flax countries where old and plodding methods are still in vogue, with additional factors in impoverished soils and high rental for land, and the cultural industry abroad is declining. With the opening of new and fertile Western lands in this country, and with the employment of the finest labor-saving agricultural implements in the world, the conditions are again changed, and are now favorable for American agriculture to re-establish this industry, and to make good a declining foreign supply. Our farmers are ready for the work, but they have not only lost their skill and cunning in producing the straw and preparing the fiber for the spinner, but new and more economical methods must be adopted to place the culture on a solid basis.

A million acres of flax are grown for seed annually, but the growth of flax for seed and flax for fiber are two very different things; moreover, Old World methods do not coincide with the progressive ideas of the educated farmers of the United States, for the peasant class does not exist in this country. A practice essentially American must be followed in order to make the culture profitable, and to equalize the difference in wages on the two sides of the Atlantic. This difference is more apparent than real, for it can be readily overcome by intelligently directed effort, by difference in soil fertility and rentals, and especially by the use of certain forms of labor-saving machines that already have been devised and are being rapidly improved. The "American practice," then, means, first, an intelligent practice, with a view to economy of effort and involving the use of machinery in the place of plodding foreign methods; and, second, the co-operation of farm labor and capital to the end of systematizing the work – i.e., the farmers of a community growing the flax, and capital, represented by a central mill, turning the straw when grown into a grade of fiber that the spinners can afford to purchase. Here is the solution of the flax problem in a nutshell. The scheme has already been tested in practice with favorable results, but the farmers in any community can do little until capital is more generally interested.

California Hemp.

This brings up an important point and presents another obstacle, for great harm has been done to all new fiber industries in recent years by the misdirected efforts of some professional promoters. In certain instances the organized fiber companies have been mere stock-jobbing concerns. They have had their rise and fall, men with idle money have burned their fingers, and the particular industry has received a "black eye."