A napped artificial leather including a non-woven fabric including ultrafine fibers and a polyurethane, the napped artificial leather including a napped surface formed by napping the ultrafine fibers on a surface thereof, wherein the napped surface has, after a Martindale abrasion test in accordance with JIS L 1096 (6.17.5E method, Martindale method) under a pressing load of 12 kPa and 50000 times of abrasions, a ratio of the polyurethane observed by a surface observation using an electron microscope in a portion that has been subjected to the Martindale abrasion test, of 4.0% or less.

A production method of an elastically stretchable artificial leather which includes a step of making microfiberizable fibers into a web; a step of entangling the obtained web to produce an entangled nonwoven fabric; a step of converting the microfiberizable fibers in the nonwoven fabric to microfine fibers, thereby producing a substrate for artificial leather; a step of producing an artificial leather by using the obtained substrate for artificial leather; and a step wherein the obtained artificial leather is brought into close contact with an elastomer sheet stretched in a machine direction by 5 to 40%; the artificial leather is allowed to shrink in the machine direction simultaneously with allowing the elastomer sheet to shrink in the machine direction by relaxing elongation of the elastomer sheet; the artificial leather is heat-treated in shrunk state; and then the artificial leather is peeled off from the elastomer sheet.

Disclosed herein is a method for producing an elastically stretchable artificial leather, which includes the steps of forming microfiberizable fibers into a web, entangling the obtained web to produce an entangled nonwoven fabric, converting the microfiberizable fibers in the nonwoven fabric to microfine fibers thereby producing a substrate for artificial leather, producing an artificial leather from the obtained substrate for artificial leather, bringing the obtained artificial leather into close contact with an elastomer sheet stretched in a machine direction by 5 to 40%, shrinking the artificial leather in the machine direction simultaneously with the elastomer sheet by relaxing elongation of the elastomer sheet to obtain an artificial leather in shrunk state, heat treating the artificial leather in shrunk state, and then peeling the heat treated artificial leather off from the elastomer sheet.

A method for manufacturing a high density artificial leather, may include (a) manufacturing a long fiber-type non-woven fabric having an areal weight of 400 to 500 g/m.sup.2 and an apparent density of 0.3 to 0.6 g/cm.sup.3 by self-twist spinning a sea component polymer fiber and an island component polymer fiber; (b) shrinking the long fiber-type non-woven fabric with hot water; (c) eluting the sea component polymer fiber from the shrunken non-woven fabric by immersing the shrunken non-woven fabric in an aqueous alkaline solution; and (d) impregnating a polymer elastomer in a non-woven fabric from which the sea component polymer fiber is eluted, to manufacture a long fiber-type fine yarn non-woven fabric.

Protective coverings herein have a coated woven material with a first edge parallel with a warp direction and a second edge opposite the first edge, and have a first edge band proximate the first edge and a second edge band proximate the second edge. The coated woven material has a woven scrim made of a plurality of weft tapes and a plurality of warp tapes, but the warp tapes positioned in the first and second edge bands are high-shrinkage warp tapes and the warp tapes positioned in between the first and second edge bands have a shrinkage that is less than a shrinkage of the high-shrinkage warp tapes, and has a coating on at least one major surface of the woven scrim. The plurality of high-shrinkage warp tapes shrink upon application of heat. Methods of covering a load, such as stacked lumber, with the protective covering are also disclosed.