24 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



deal more remains to be accomplished in bringing together the 

 farmer and capitalist in the practical work of growing, retting, 

 scutching, and preparing for market American flax fiber, for ques- 

 tions of culture are settled. 



"We should restore our hemp industry to its former proportions 

 by producing high-grade instead of low-grade fiber. The growth of 

 a grade of American hemp that will sell for six to eight cents per 

 pound, instead of three to three and a half cents per pound, as at 

 the present time, means that our farmers must follow more closely 

 the careful practices of Europe, and especially that they must adopt 

 water retting in place of the present practice of dew retting, which 

 gives a fiber dark in color and uneven in quality. A careful con- 

 sideration of the practices of Italy and France as set forth in Fiber 

 Report No. 11, Department of Agriculture, will materially aid those 

 who desire to change their product from the cheaper dark hemps, for 

 which there is small demand, to the higher-priced light hemps, which 

 will compete with the imported commodity. 



One of the most interesting problems of the clay in the utilization 

 of the new fiber material, and one that is attracting the attention of 

 all civilized countries, is the industrial production of that wonder- 

 ful substance known in the Orient as China grass, in India as rhea, 

 and in Europe and America as ramie. They money spent by gov- 

 ernments and by private enterprise throughout the world, in experi- 

 ments and inventions, in the effort to establish the ramie industry, 

 would make up the total of a princely fortune. Obstacle after 

 obstacle has been overcome in the years of persistent effort, and now 

 we stand before the last barrier, baffled for the time, but still hopeful, 

 and with efforts unrelaxed. The difficulty may be stated in a few 

 words: ramie culture will only become a paying industry when an 

 economically successful machine for stripping the fiber has been 

 placed on the market. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been 

 spent in efforts to perfect a machine, but no Government fiber expert 

 in the world recognizes that we have such a machine at the pres- 

 ent time, though great progress has been made in machine con- 

 struction. 



The world's interest in this fiber began in 1869, when a reward 

 of five thousand pounds was offered by the Government of India for 

 the best machine with which to decorticate the green stalks. The first 

 exhibition and trial of machines took place in 1872, resulting in utter 

 failure. The reward was again offered, and in 1879 a second official 

 trial was held, at which ten machines competed, though none filled 

 the requirements, and subsequently the offer was withdrawn. The 

 immediate result was to stimulate invention in many countries, and 

 from 1869 to the present time inventors have been untiring in their 



