February i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



571 



are called beaters, that is to say, a certain number of pro- ' 

 jectiiig ribs, and it revolves in front of a feeding table at 

 a great rate. It is worked at 600 revolutions a minute. ' 

 This operation goes on in front of the feeding table, as it 

 is called, and this constitutes the whole machine, as regards 

 the mechanical portion, with the exception of the water. ', 

 Below, and at an angle of about 45 "^ , a strong flattened 

 jet of water passes, and I will tell you what the effect 

 of that is. The cylinder, remember, is rapidly revolving ; 

 you feed in at the side here, the beaters catch and break 

 up the sticks into very small pieces, and tbe jet of water, 

 coming from below, meets the fibre, and keeps it up against 

 the beaters, so that it is really beatou in a stream of water. 

 The result of this is, you not only get the fibre cleared of a ' 

 large portion of its gum, but you have next to no waste, and 

 what little there is, is excellent for many purposes — it can 

 be made use of, as most other waste products can. Thus is ' 

 explained the secret of the success of the invention, and 

 how it solves the problem of a machine for cleaning rheea. 



I may mention, with regard to this rheea which I ex- 

 perimented upon, that it was thi'ee days old. In order to 

 obtain the full success, the rheea cannot be too freshly 

 cut. 1 should say that it ought to be operated upon within ' 

 six hours, and that it should be kept in the shade until ; 

 operated upon. I took some stems, which looked to me 

 perfectly Iresh, but when I broke them I found that the , 

 coluunng matters and the gums had sunk into the fibre, 

 which, if it had been quite fresh, you would have been 

 able, after scraping, to blow through, but you could no 

 longer do so, thus showing the necessity of having the 

 stalks quite fresh to operate upon. I again made a series 

 of experinsL'nt-; to try this machine in preparing other fibres, 

 and I have here tonight a large number of specimens. 

 For instance, there was one very interesting series of ex- 

 periments which I made with the Moorva (Sin^etiera 

 zeylanica). This plant grows as a weed in Madras and 

 other x>^rts of India. In fact, it is such a nuisance that 

 the people sometimes do not know what to do with it, 

 but this machine tells us what to do with it. The 

 sample which I hold in my baud was prepared upon 

 the occasion to which I have alluded. Here is a sample 

 which is prepared on the commercial scale in India by this 

 machine, and, I may say, with regard to that particular 

 fibre, that it has been proved that it will compete fairly 

 with Manilla hemp, which occupies a very important place 

 in this market. Here is a sample of cord made from it, 

 and you can all see how beautiful and white it is. This 

 cord is made by one of the principal makers in the king- 

 dom, and his report is that it is 7'4 stronger than Manilla, 

 and over 4 per cent lighter. This machine has been the 

 means, already, of bringing this new and important fibre 

 to notice, antl it operates upon the plant which produces 

 it with great facility. Then I had some large aloe leaves, 

 some of the leaves being as thick as my arm. Here is a 

 specimen of New Zealand flax which was prepared by the 

 machine. I am indebted to Mr. Christie for this sample, 

 which, I believe, has come from Africa. The surprising 

 thing is the ease with which the machine operates upon 

 all sizes of leaves and stalks, taking them all, little and 

 large indiscriminately, without any special aijjustment or 

 setting whatever ; this fact, therefore, shows that the char- 

 acter of the action was a very simple and effective one. 

 M'ith regard to the question of setting. I may just men- 

 tion that the beaters were adiusted at a quarter of an inch 

 away from the table, so that it was clear the New Zealand 

 flaz which I have just shown you was not struck by them. 

 All these stalks and the others received rapid blows from 

 the beaters, but this could not have got any, because the 

 leaf is not one- tenth of an inch thick; therefore, the total 

 action arose from the beating of the water, the leaves being 

 held up by the current, and the beaters coming round and 

 round, worked the whole of the refuse out of it, and pro- 

 duced the fibre which I have shown you. In short, this 

 machine is what I venture to call a universal fibre cleaner. 

 It cleans every fibre, and it will extract the fibre from 

 every plant into which nature has put one. 



There is one other question, namely, will it extract the 

 fibre from jut<:^? I reason in this way. Jute is a plant 

 \*xy succulent in its nature, and something like China grass. 

 The stem is about the same thickness, and in many other 

 respects it is the same, so that I think the inference I 

 draw is a fair one, and that this machine will clean jute, 



and thus be the means of introducing a superior class o 

 this important fibre into the market. Jute is now prepared, 

 by a retting process. If done, as one gentleman whom I 

 see here has prepared it, in a running stream, you get rid 

 of the rotting or retting, and obtain the fibre in th*; best 

 possible condition ; but if it is prepared in a stagnant pool, 

 with lumps of mud to keep it down, it becomes partially 

 decomposed, and you will necessarily get weak fibre. Jute 

 prepared by this machine — as X said before, is likely to 

 supply a new class of jute, one taking a high place in the 

 market. In the same way the machine will settle one or 

 two other moot points. It will afford, £ believe, the means 

 of cleaning another fibre which has attracted a great deal 

 of attention, namely, madar^ or Odotropus ffigantea, which 

 grows as a weed all over India. The juices of this plant 

 are more difficult to deal with than even those of the rheea, 

 being of a gutta-percha character ; and if, as anticipated, 

 it is found possible to clean it by this machine, it may be 

 the means of introducing auother new fibre to commerce. 



Let us now look at the character of the machine. It 

 is a very simple machine ; I have described it t-) yoj, and 

 there are photographs of it here, and arrangem3uts can 

 be mide for those who are re;illy practically interested in 

 it, seeing the machine at work. It is easily worked. Tho 

 power it requires is sm lU ; one horse-power baing su'Kci- 

 ent. Of course the question of the supply of Witer is 

 an important one. Now, there are two way-! of doing this, 

 the first being from a height. In a Hilly country you 

 can have a tank som3 sixty feet up, which will give you 

 the pressure required, which is oaly thirty pounds ; or you 

 may use the pump which is attache! to each pair of 

 machines to give the necessary pre.3su:-e. The pump is 

 specially adapted for working the machine, and is not liable 

 to get out of order, uot being a valve pump; and it will 

 be found, I believe, to be admirably adapted for the pur- 

 pose. The quantity of water required for working the 

 machine amounts to about 400 gallons an hour. That is 

 a good deal, perhajis, but you can use the sxra-i water 

 three or four times over, if you let the refuse sink away 

 from it, and draw it back by m3a;is of a hose, so that 

 1,000 gallons a day will represent the quiutity of water 

 necessary to work with. "WMth regird to the question of 

 water, there is this to be borne in miid — that it is very 

 desirable that the water should be scared and turned to 

 account for helping the plants to grow ; that is to say. 

 it should be used for irrigation, for it contains a great 

 deal of the nutriment of the plants We all know that 

 if you wish to grow crop after crop of any plant, it is 

 necessary to restore the constituents in the form of arti- 

 ficial manure, where in this case, if the wat'ir is put upon 

 the land, the soil will repossess itself of what his been 

 taken out of it. In the same way the broken uj) stalks 

 should be collected and used for manure or fuel. I may 

 say this, that with regard to the question of the number 

 of crops that you expect of China grass or rhaea fibre, 

 some people will tell you that there will be as m^ny as 

 four or five, and I have met enthusiasts who spokt* of 

 six or seven. No plant cli hi^ grown on the same soil, 

 time after time, unless great e ir;i is taken to restoi-e tha 

 elements to the soil which hive been taken out, and that 

 is the case particularly with regard to rheea. In China 

 they manure and till the ground very carefully. 



Now, one word more about the machine, with regard 

 to the important question of outturn. The experiments 

 which have been made here are very interesting as re- 

 gards the quality of the fibre, but they are no gui le as 

 to the quantity of outturn, and, therefore, I have to 

 depend for this upon the evidence which has bi^en Iiid 

 before me, and which has led me to the conclusion that 

 a pair of machines will turn out from 140 to 250 pounds 

 of clean fibre in a day. according to the assiduity and 

 skill with which the machines are worked. If a man 

 dawdles over his work, he will not turn out so much as 

 the mau who goes to work with a will. There are other 

 elements which should be considered. The other day a 

 complaint was received from a gentleman to the effect that 

 the machine worked capitally, but he couM only get forty 

 pounds out of it in a day's working. The next mail brought 

 a letter to say that he had been thinking of making a su:j- 

 gestion with regard to the working of the machine — namely 

 that they should take off the roots from the plants, bjca ise 

 he found that the earth which was attached to them r;vt4ec 



