26 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



fineness of silk. In manufacture it has been spun on various forms 

 of textile machinery, also used in connection with cotton, wool, and 

 silk, and can be employed as a substitute in certain forms of manu- 

 facture for all these textiles and for flax also, where elasticity is not 

 essential. It likewise produces superior paper, the fineness and close 

 texture of its pulp making it a most valuable bank-note paper. In 

 England, France, Germany, Austria, and in our own country to an 

 experimental extent, the fiber has also been woven into a great variety 

 of fabrics, covering the widest range of uses, such as lace, lace cur- 

 tains, handkerchiefs, cloth, or white goods resembling fine linen, dress 

 goods, napkins, table damask, table covers, bedspreads, drapery for 

 curtains or lambrequins, plush, and even carpets and fabrics suitable 

 for clothing. The fiber can be dyed in all desirable shades or colors, 

 some examples having the luster and brilliancy of silk. In China 

 and Japan the fiber is extracted by hand labor; it is not only manu- 

 factured into cordage, fish lines, nets, and similar coarse manu- 

 factures, but woven into the finest and most beautiful of fabrics." 



China is at present the source of supply of the raw product, and 

 the world's demand is only about ten thousand tons, nine tenths of 

 this quantity being absorbed in Oriental countries. The ramie situa- 

 tion in the United States at the present time may be briefly sum- 

 marized as follows : 



The plant can be grown successfully in ( 'alifornia and in the Gulf 

 States, and will produce from two to four crops per year without 

 replanting, giving from two hundred and fifty to eight hundred 

 pounds of fiber per acre, dependent upon the number of cuttings, 

 worth perhaps four cents per pound. The machines for preparing 

 this fiber for market are hardly able at the present time to clean the 

 product of one acre (single crop) in a day, and the fiber is quite 

 inferior to the commercial China grass. A new French machine pro- 

 duces a quality of fiber which approaches the China grass of com- 

 merce, but its output per day is too small to make its use profitable 

 in this country. All obstacles in chemical treatment of the fiber and 

 in spinning and manufacture are overcome, and the world is waiting 

 for the successful device which will economically prepare the raw 

 material for market. 



The part the United States Government is taking in the work is 

 to co-operate in experiments, to issue publications giving all desired 

 information regarding culture, the machine question, and the utiliza- 

 tion of the fiber. It tests new decorticators and reports to the public 

 upon their merits or demerits. It cautions farmers and capitalists, 

 for the present, to go into the industry with their eyes open, for 

 the professional promotor has seized upon this industry, above all 

 others in the fiber interest, as one in which he can more readily gull 



