S7C 



ftiE TROPICAL Agriculturist. 



[Febrttart I, 1884. 



that it was quite possible to prepare satisfactorily the 

 fibre, which was worth about £15 a ton less than China 

 gi-ass, but was still sufficiently good to give hopes that, 

 if you got the rheea dried, it might be a matter of con- 

 sideration whfther something might not be done. The 

 Government of India, however, saw the difficulty of ex- 

 tracting the fibre from the dry stems; inasmuch as you 

 cannot get them dried except during certain seasons in 

 India ; it would require artificial means to dry the stems 

 properly, which \vould be much too expensive a plan. 

 Hence the method of preparing the fibre from dry stems 

 had to be given up, and the Government of India, after 

 a certain time, resolved to re-offer this prize, and two or 

 three years ago another competition took place, but with 

 the same result as at the first one. No machine at this 

 second competition was considered worthy of a prize on 

 that occasion, and I believe that no portion of one was 

 awarded. The samples which were sent for examination 

 to this country were examined by my colleague, Mr. Col- 

 Iyer, and other brokers, and declared to be very far inferior 

 from what it should be if it were to be comparable in 

 quality with China grass. That represented the position 

 of matters up to very recently. About two months ago 

 I was asked to go to Paris for the purpose of examining 

 a process by which one could succeed in stripping the stems 

 very readily, subjecting them to chemical treatment after- 

 wards. I had a double object, in addition to tijiding out 

 and seeing what coidd be done by this process — it was a 

 dcniicr rcssort if we could not get a machine to do the 

 work, and said, "Let us get the next best thing;'' and, 

 accordingly, I went to Paris for the purpose of examining 

 this process, and I will describe the results which I saw, 

 which were very interesting. The method is a conjoint one, 

 and is known as the "Pavier-Prcmy " process. It consists, 

 in the first place, in facilitating the removal of the bark, 

 with all ils adherent fibre, by the action of steam. Im- 

 mediately after it is cut, it is not difficult to remove the 

 bark, and almost all the fibre attached to it, leading a very 

 little fibre Ijohind. If the plant is allowed to he a certain 

 time aftjr cutting, a few hours will make a great differ- 

 euce, the quantity of fibre left on is largely increased. I 

 find it goes up iu this way to nearly as much as 15 per 

 cent in sterns which were several days old before they 

 were peeled. "When cut fresh, you get off. by the hand, 

 nearly the whole of the fibre — it peels off — there is a httle 

 fine fibre remaining, but very little ; this, however, must 

 be done immediately the plant is gathered. The process 

 of steaming — putting the stems into a box with a false 

 bottom, and letting steam in below, so facilitates the separ- 

 ation of the bark, that you get everything, and this dark 

 rough fibre is the result of the steaming upon some of 

 the rheea stems, grown in Hampshire, which I took from 

 this country to Paris with me for experiment. I may men- 

 tion that I found the rheea, which I got here was very 

 much longer and better grown in some respects than that 

 which I got in Paris. That process facilitates the getting 

 off of the bark, but having got this off, the question is 

 what to do with it. Now, M. Frcmy, the distinguished 

 French chemist, and his able assistant, il. Urbaiu, made 

 a number of experiments, with a view of determining the 

 best way of getting rid of all this black bark — I will call 

 it black bark; I am not using scientific language — aud they 

 came to the conclusion that it was necessary to employ a 

 high-pressure boiler, in addition to a solution of caustic 

 so, la, for that purpose ; and, in testing this process, I found 

 the pressure was very considerable indeed, the temperature 

 iu the boiler, as I ascertained by experiment, being 295 

 degrees of Pahrenheit ; aud at the end of the operation, 

 which extended over four hours' time, the fibre was taken 

 out of the boiler, still m a black condition. But the theory 

 was that the high pressure had aided the caustic soda in 

 dissolving the whole of the gums, including the bark, which 

 is the difficult thing to get rid of. Now this bark and 

 fibre, as removed from the boiler, was then placed in a 

 solution of hydrochloric acid, and almost at the moment 

 it touches the acid, that which looked a black, dark mas';, 

 spce.iily clears, and you see the beautiful fibre making its 

 nppoarance. I felt that this settled the question of getting 

 the fibre in a very nice condition. AVhen I came to ex- 

 amine it more minutely, however, I fonud this alteration 

 was one of appearance only ; the bark to a lai'ge extent 

 ^vas simply in a chaliged condition, not dissolved by the 



alkaU; it still remained there, and continued to do so 

 throughout the greater portion of the subsequent oper- 

 ations. I can ouUr uow give you some of the general feat- 

 ures of the case, but shall be happy to enter more minutely 

 into the matter at any time at Mr. Collyer's office. No, 

 141, Fenchurch-street. I foimd that this'process did pro- 

 duce a certain effect upon the material. This sample is a 

 dried sample of the fibre as it leaves the Fremy boiler, and 

 it contains a very considerable proportion of gum imdis- 

 solved ; it contains very nearly as much as China grass, 

 which is prepared in the other way. It is true it is looser, 

 and more easily dissolved out, but there it is. Hei-e is a 

 sample of fibre from the acii.1 solution, which is the same 

 as that which was afterwards in this state placed in a 

 chlorine solution of some strength, and I find this loses 

 a very considerable percentage of its weight. However, 

 the point I am coming to is this ; after leaving Paris I 

 made exijeriments to see whether it was necessary to have 

 this high-pressure boiler at all. It is anything but a sim- 

 ple operation; when you come to operate upon many tons 

 of material it is difficult to manage, and a high-pressure 

 boiler always means expense. Thus came the question, was 

 it necessary ? and I was desirous to find out (whilst I was 

 very pleased with the F'avier portion of the process, as it 

 got the fibre off the stems very readily), since no machine 

 was available, whether a future, so to speak, might not 

 be opened up by adopting this process. I was anxious to 

 get rid of the high-pressure boiler, and my experiments 

 — made in my own laboratory — show clearly enough that 

 it is not necessary. I have here samples (I have them in 

 a fresh condition) which are in a sticky-looking mass. They 

 have been simply boile<l in the Fremy solution, and I find 

 all my bark here is just as readily removed as that from 

 the boiler. It is, peihaps, a little more adherent together, 

 but in after operations that can be got rid of as readil3' as 

 possible. Therefore I had to come to the conclusion that 

 the high-pressure boiler was not required — that we could 

 get all these residts without it — and that would be one 

 great gain. That is a very important consideration. This 

 represents the position, so far, of the matter when I re- 

 turned from carrying out these experiments in Paris. 



I now come to what happened next. Fortunately, X had 

 asked the nobleman who, year after year in times past, 

 had allowed me to have, for the use of my department 

 all the rheea stems which grew in his garden, and he has 

 been good enough to allow a certain proportion of the 

 stems to be left standing for experiment ou my return, 

 and I had thus the materials for carrying out some ex- 

 periments, the results of which will appear at the end of 

 my paper. I had heard, when recently in India, of Messrs. 

 Death aud Ellwood's machine, the iuventiou of Mr. H. C. 

 Smith, as a very ingenious machine, which had been suc- 

 cessfully used for extracting the fibre from leaves of the 

 Agave plant, similar to those now before you. For instance, 

 here is a specimen of the sort of leaf with which that 

 machine would deal. Here is another kiuil, and here are 

 several other leaves to which I shall have occasion to refer 

 presently. I knew it had dealt with these successfully, but 

 I had no idea that it would do for rheea. In fact, I had 

 come to the conclusion (though I never put it in writing, 

 by-the-bye) that we should never get a machme that would 

 do for the rheea. I could not conceive of any machine 

 which we could apply without crushing rollers iu some way 

 or other. I saw no difficulty in getting a machine which 

 w juld extract the fibre, but the point was to get one which 

 would do this, and leave it in a good condition as regards 

 quality. "When asked to test this machine, I did so very 

 willingly, and my test was this : I had in stock at the 

 time a considerable quantity of rheea stalks nearly five 

 feet long, and some of very much shorter lengths. That 

 is to say, I had rheea stalks as thick as my thumb, and 

 nearly five feet long, and others smalK r than my little 

 finger. With these I tested the machine, and was 

 surprised for the moment to find that the large and 

 small sticks were operated upon with equal readiness. 

 Here is an actual portion of the fibre prepared on that 

 occasion, from these very stems. The secret of the success 

 of this machine lies in this, that one-half of it is, so to 

 speak, water. Now, I will explain what I mean by this, 

 as it seems a som-'what out-of-the-way remark. Imagine this 

 tumbler that I hold in my hand to be the cylinder of the 

 machine, 18 inches m diameter. It is proWded with whflt 



