Kategória: Kalandok

The development of industrial processing of hemp. Part II.

Post-Bakay era 1890 – 1944

The Szeged Hemp Spinning Factory was almost the exclusive supplier of both the joint army and the Hungarian Army, and was one of the first to be placed under military supervision.
The hemp processing factory in Újszeged was established by Miklós Hipp from Palánka and János Narbuth from Lemberg. In July 1887, the city sold 40 acres of land on the lower banks of the Tisza River to entrepreneurs on favorable terms. The factory buildings were completed by the summer of 1888, and hemp soaking began. The factory was taken over by First Szeged Hemp Finishing Co. in 1889 with a share capital of HUF 200,000. In 1891 the share capital was already 650,000 HUF, and the plant, equipped with 46 crushing, cutting, troweling, etc. machines, produced 15,000 tonnes of finished hemp annually by processing 2500 acres of produce. At the same time, the factory was expanded with a sailcloth weaving plant with a capacity of 1 million square metres of sailcloth by setting up 60 weaving machines and 7 larger auxiliary machines in order to utilize the over retted fibers obtained during hemp processing as a side product.

In 1905 the factory was taken over by the Hungarian Hemp and Flax Industry Co. with a share capital of 2 million K. After German shareholders left the company, Leó Fuchs, who mainly had a Viennese financial interest, took over the majority of the shares. In 1915 the Jute and Hemp Industry Co. of Pesterzsébet acquired the majority of the shares, and in 1917 the Central Textile Industry Co. took over the company in Újszeged. In the 1920s, the factory, which employed 800 people, sold 60% of its products abroad.

During the reconstruction of 1927-28, the machines were grouped together in a practical and economical way, as well as constructions for hygienic purposes. From then on, most of the machines were supplied by the factory’s new electrical centre. Some modern machines were also installed and the most modern fire safety equipment was installed. During the crisis years, the company’s survival was largely due to this modernization: goods produced in large quantities, in good quality and, above all, cheaply, with modern equipment, remained sought-after items all along. The factory was able to remain profitable throughout, something few could say about themselves at the time.

In the second half of the 1930s, as a member of the international yarn and twine cartel, it exported to 43 countries and was the second largest foreign exchange producer in the textile industry after the Goldberger factory. The number of its workers at that time was 1200.

The development of industrial processing of hemp I.

As a citizen of Szeged, Nándor Bakay was an indispensable figure in the industrial organization of the city. He established the Szeged-centered, low land base of large-scale hemp processing. It was also decisive in the scale of historical Hungary. He was responsible for establishing the industrial hemp processing units.
Nándor Bakay’s ancestors – certainly up to his great-grandfather – practiced the rope-beating craft one after another, ensuring the quality of the profession is passed down within the family. The first of these was the grandfather of the factory founder who arrived in Szeged as a rope-beating lad from Senta in 1801. Nándor Bakay passed his master exam in 1859. The Great Plain provided favourable conditions for the developing this industry, due to the high demand arising from the need for ropes for fishing, shipping, agriculture and industrial purposes. From the second half of the 18th century, the treasury encouraged mass cultivation of industrial crops. In the middle of the 19th century, with the start of railway transport, the number of hemp processing factories also increased.

In the era of dualism, Szeged’s textile industry became known primarily through hemp processing. The centre of hemp production in Hungary was the southern part of the Great Plain, especially Bács-Bodrog County. In addition to the Saxon towns in Transylvania, rope production flourished mainly in certain settlements in southern Hungary.
In 1863, Nándor Bakay was able to start developing the machinery of the workshop he had taken over from his father, which was still operating within the framework of a guild, and to provide a wider range of products. He introduced the production of several products (fire harness, hose, iron wire rope) in Hungary. In 1872 free trading with industrial hemp became possible for everyone. He immediately developed his workshop into a mechanical rope-beating plant that multiplied its production.
In 1877 he converted his plant using steam power. He equipped it with modern English spinning and weaving machines. From then on, it allowed hemp to be processed on a truly large scale.

After the destruction of Szeged in 1879 following the flood, he managed to rebuild his own factory. Through a group of bankers and crop merchants, the plant operated as a new partnership from 1884 – Bakay’s spinning, weaving, rope factory and hemp redemption co. – and the founder continued to work as technical director until 1886. He was then the second secretary of the Szeged Chamber of Commerce and Industry founded in 1890 until his death in 1902.
The situation of the company stabilized only in 1890, when Szeged Hemp Spinning Factory Co. was founded in Budapest with a share capital of HUF (Hungarian Forints) 350,000 arranged by the Hungarian Industrial and Commercial Bank.

Processing of hemp

As a first step hemp went through a soaking process. Depending on the temperature of the water, the hemp cork was soaked under water for 7 to 14 days to loosen the valuable fibre on the outside of the stem from the inner, woody tissue of the hemp. Hemp soaking was common in both still and running water. Soaking in major rivers was banned by authorities because substances leaching from hemp poisoned fish stocks. For hemp soaking, stakes were beaten down the bed of the water and placed tied sheaves either individually or in larger bundles of 5 to 20 sheaves held together with straw ropes when processing hemp. Depending on the depth of the water, it was stacked in several rows to be covered by water. Therefore, hemp put in the soaker was pressed: it was covered with straw, cross-stakes were used to put stumps, stones and possibly mud on top.

The second step was to process the fiber part gained from the soaking process. The inner woody part, rotten during the soaking procedure, was shattered so that it fell out of the precious fiber strips in small pieces. The debris thus falling out was called pozdorya or, in the southern part of the Great Plain, chepue. Hungarians used several ways to do this. The most common one is the hemp crusher, which is identical in shape and structure to the tiller, but has a stronger, coarser finish. Very often, the work was preceded by a pre-crush phase. Most of the time, this just meant having a handful of hemp choke in their hands, crunching them at quarters or fifths of their length so that they could break it more easily on the crusher. This so-called hemp crushing process was more popular in the Trans-Tisza region, where in addition to crunching into pieces, hemp fibers were also folded, that is people trampled on it thoroughly with their feet before the fiber was further processed with the hemp crusher.
Another way of hemp softening was done by a machine powered by water energy, usually operated by watermills, notably stream mills. Its structure was identical to those used in the compression of woolen fabric, except that in this case the dropped jerk fell on a smooth, dry sole beam, and softened the lump of fiber placed under it with his heavy, rhythmic blows. The built-in levers on the crankshaft rotating in a thick, iron-ended, iron-shaft-ended bushing bearing rotated by gear ratio, differing at an angle of about 30 degrees, collided with the handle of the hemp-breaker’s percussion mechanism or jerk during rotation, lifting it and dropping it. The rotational energy was thus transformed into intermittent motion, work. The falling jerk crushed the fibers of hemp laid on the base beam of the hemp crusher. The miller had to pay customs every tenth mark for using the hemp crusher.

After the softening process was over hemp fiber was combed on a hemp comb. A pure hemp bundle was classified according to the thickness of its fibers. From the thinner thread bundle, the yarn was braided with a spindle. The thread was lowered from a knot tied at the end of the gusage, which was braided into yarn by spinning the spindle. They spun yarn with fox from a tow, which was thicker. The braided yarn was thrown on his motoll. The amount of yarn was calculated from the length of the motolla and the number of lifts that were used to throw the yearn onto the motolla. Yarn making was the women’s winter occupation. The finished yarn was stored in balls. Depending on the quality of the yarn, the weaver weaved cloth and burlap from the material entrusted to him. From the coarsest bundle, he spun the obligatory steed, halter, rope, which he sold at fairs.

The origin of industrial hemp and its ethnographic traditions

Hemp is the most important industrial plant Hungary among those having rich bast fiber content. For a hemp land, a good quality area is chosen usually located at a deeper sea level. Hemp is sown by hand, in the same way as cereal crops. It is either sprinkled and harrowed on fresh ploughing, or sown on flattened ploughing and hoeed in. When the color of the plant changes from green to yellow, it is plucked out and the process is called hemp weaving. Then soaking and processing takes place. The native land of hemp is Central Asia. It reached Europe through mass migration. The Hungarians got to know it even before the Hungarian conquest, growing it to make yarn and for its oily seeds. In the Carpathian Basin it was grown mainly in the central, southern and eastern areas, while in the western and northern parts flax seeds remained to be the most important fiber crop. For centuries, hemp was the most important cottage industry crop on Hungarian peasant farms. It was grown usually in the outskirts of a settlement, in an area specially designated for this purpose. The memory of growing hemp is still preserved by numerous geographical names in Hungary, like Kenderes, Kendereskert, Kenderesföld and others. For the most part, hemp was grown on a small area, so that a family could process it during the winter after autumn work. Self-sufficent hemp production was suppressed by the expanding manufacturing industry starting from the second half of the last century.

Beliefs and magical procedures associated with hemp is usually the principle of analogy. For sowing hemp, the seed must be prepared on Shrove Tuesday. So, at the time of leaving meat behind and starting the fasting season, people would jump high,, cook long noodles in the soup, go to many places to dine, put hemp fiber in the rut to make hemp fibers long. Sowing was regulated by various regulations and prohibitions: according to a popular belief, Friday was the best day for sowing, even better if there was neither sun nor moon in the sky at that time. It was believed that hemp sown naked, speechless, from a new clay pot yielded a good long-stemmed crop. It was predicted that if there were long icicles at the end of Feb, hemp would be long. According to popular belief , the base of hemp breaks on St. Anne’s Day, and from then on it does not grow, only turns yellow. Green hemp when put in bed is useful against fleas, folk practice has held. Hemp seeds were also used to remove jinxes.