292 



half the quantity of potash will suffice. The process of retting is 

 completed in from 4 to 8 days. The bundles when partially 

 opened and dried in stacks can be stored, and will keep for a 

 considerable time. The sun would be available for drying in the 

 greater part of Jamaica. The liquid which is over, mixed with 

 cattle, sheep or horse (not hog) manure, makes a most suitable 

 manure, and the leaves would make good paper stock. The cost 

 of chemicals is nominal. 



Yield. — It is estimated that each cutting gives 20,000 lbs. of 

 green stems with leaves, or 5,000 lbs. of dry stalks, as the yield per 

 acre, and the minimum product from the dry stalks is 15 per cent, 

 that is 750 lbs. of raw merchantable fibre, or not ciuite 4 per cent, 

 of the living stem and leaves. In good soil and plenty of moisture, 

 five crops may be expected annually. The caution, however, must 

 be given that until the end of the first year at any rate when the 

 roots have at length penetrated the soil, a full crop can scarcely 

 be expected. 



CONCLUSIONS IN 1875 WITH REGARD TO THE FUTURE 

 PROSPECTS OF RAMIE BY DR. FORBES WATSON. 



" Ramie possesses qualities which will always make it a com- 

 paratively high-priced fibre, standing as it does between the vege- 

 table fibres, hemp and flax, ranging from £30 to £70 per ton, and 

 the usually much higher priced animal fibres, wool and silk, ranging 

 from £130 per ton upwards. It is only in com.petition with these 

 latter that ramie will have to rely on its cheapness; since, as regards 

 the other vegetable fibres, it has already been noticed that, at equal 

 or even superior prices it may yet in many cases be used with ad- 

 vantage instead of hemp and flax. The details supplied prove 

 however, that the prices of the raw material have in reality been 

 hitherto prohibitive. On any greater demand for it, the prices of 

 the raw fibre rose at once to £70 or £80 per ton, which corresponds 

 to £100 or £120 per ton of available fibre, exclusive of cost of 

 preparation. Prepared or combed fibre was usually sold at 2s. 6d., 

 sometimes 3s. 6d. per lb., or £280 to £392 per ton, prices such as, 

 whh the exception of the best kind of Sea Island cotton and of 

 some superfine kinds of flax, which may almost be called fancy 

 varieties, no vegetable fibre commands. The combing wastes or 

 noils of ramie even now, find a ready sale at from £80 to £100 per 

 ton, a price which, with the present prices of rough China grass, 

 might make it remunerative to convert its whole quantity into 

 combing waste, if so be that this could be practically carried out. 

 Under such conditions, it is a striking acknowledgment of its value 

 that it should ever have been considered as having any chance at 

 all, and have come so near to actual success as it has done. 



" In considering what range of prices would be sufficient to secure 

 a large demand for this material in the present state of the market, 

 several circumstances must be taken into account. 



"It is important to bear in mind that, like all other fibres, ramie 

 exhibits remarkable differences of quality. In China, where alone 

 it is used for any fine purposes, a difference is even remarked 



