Last Word in Jute

The burlap shortage, which had U.S. bag-users hot & bothered months ago, was no longer a worry last week. Reason: cotton-and paper-bag production had zoomed fast enough to plug the entire gap. Cotton bags are just as good as burlap; the only catch is that they cost 10-25% more (17-c- for a cotton potato bag v. 15-c- for burlap).

The burlap scare started when Jap warships swooped into the Bay of Bengal, threatened to cut supply lines to India--source of 99% of world jute, from which burlap is made. With U.S. burlap stockpiles down to a bare three months' supply, something had to be done. It was. In March, WPB rated cotton-bagging at A2, only one notch below military cotton cloth. Month later Washington went a step further, forced all heavy-goods cotton mills to put 20-40% of their looms on cotton-bagging.

Results are startling. Bemis Bro. Bag Co., No. 1 U.S. bagmaker, last week reported that, while burlap-bag output was down 80%, cotton-and paper-bag production was up 50%. This switch was cheap: a few ingenious adjustments immediately converted burlap-bag machines to cotton; paper-bag facilities were enlarged and slapped on longer schedules. Meantime Lend-Lease and military bag orders piled in. Thus, instead of starving on the jute shortage, Bemis Bro.--and most other U.S. bagmakers--are serving the war effort by the highest production ever.

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