i6 



RAMIE, RHEA, CHINA GRASS, OR NETTLE FIBRE* 



surrounded with a skin or pellicle. This skin, 

 if allowed to dry on the stem, assumes a [ 

 brown colour, clings to the fibre with remark- 

 able tenacity, and has been the cause of the I 

 major portion of the degumming patents that j 

 have been taken out. The chemists only par- j 

 tially succeeded in their treatment, because in 

 removing the brown skin they too often 

 attacked the strength of the fibre, destroyed 

 its lustre, made it harsh and brittle, affected 

 its character for receiving dyes, and matted 

 it, causing great loss in combing. 



The problem, commercially considered, has 

 been to obtain a decorticating machine which 

 can carry out economically the following pro- 

 cesses without damaging the fibre : (a) Re- 

 move all the woody parts from the green 

 stems ; (6) remove the outer skin or cuticle 

 which has so long baffled all mechanical efforts 

 to remove it ; and (c) extract as much as pos- 

 sible of the juice of the stems so as to sim- 

 plify and cheapen the degumming process. The 

 two former processes are effectively carried out 

 by hand-labour in China, where women and 

 children scrape every stem and remove the skin 

 and the wood, but leave most of the juice in 

 the fibre. 



All inventors of ramie decorticators have con- 

 centrated their efforts on machines to produce 

 ribbons. Needless to say, the object aimed at 

 fell far short of the real necessities of the 

 case ; hence some of the long delays and 

 numerous disappointments with which this fibre 

 is associated. Ramie ribbons or strips must 

 always be considered unsatisfactory, and will, 

 no doubt, in time .disappear. The buyer has 

 no means of readily testing their value, the 

 quality and percentage of the fibre, and 

 whether it has been damaged or not by the 

 decorticating machine ; hence his objection to 

 an unknown article, in addition to which they 

 cannot be highly compressed and packed into 

 proper bales as other fibres are, because the 

 large quantity of pieces of wood in them cut 

 the fibre. They also contain a very large per- 

 centage of useless material on which freight 

 has to be paid. 



It has been reserved for a Frenchman, M. 

 Faure, to construct a machine capable of pro- | 

 ducing, not ribbons, but fibre in one operation, j 

 free from woody matter and skin, and with ; 

 the least possible amount of juice in it. The ; 

 product is equivalent to China grass. A skilled \ 

 engineer and machine maker, with every j 

 facility at his own works and ample means for | 

 carrying out his ideas, he had the benefit j 

 of another important advantage namely, the j 



growing of ramie on his own estate which en- 

 abled him to practically test his ideas by 

 actual experiments on the raw material a 

 combination of advantages probably not en- 

 joyed by any other inventor of decorticators. 

 Patiently and scientifically he has, step by 

 step, worked out the problem, and the machine 

 represents the result of his several years' 

 labour. It is simple, inexpensive, and does its 

 work admirably. It is fed by the insertion of 

 lots of about ten stems. The stems are used 

 in the same condition as cut, with the leaves 

 on. The operation of feeding is as follows: 

 The stems are passed in twice. They enter the 

 machine butt ends first, and having been trea- 

 ted about six inches of their length, they are 

 withdrawn (an operation easily carried out) and 

 fed in a second time, the leaf ends first, so as 

 to complete the operation. It frees the stems 

 from all woody matter and from the outer skin 

 or cuticle, and extracts a large portion of the 

 juice, thus producing fibre retaining all its 

 valuable qualities. 



The machine, which weighs 11 cwt., is very 

 strong and not liable to get out of order. It 

 consists mainly of the framework and driving 

 gear, the decorticating drum carrying beaters 

 and the feed bed. This latter is the import- 

 ant feature of the machine, by reason of its 

 special contour, which varies at different parts 

 to suit the various descriptions of work which 

 the machine has to perform. The first part of 

 the bed is curved outwards, the second is 

 straight, and the third is curved inwards. The 

 ramie stems are fed into the machine over the 

 first part of the bed, where the woody portion 

 becomes immediately broken and partly re- 

 moved ; the strip passes on to the second part, 

 and as the speed of the beaters is considerably 

 greater than that at which the stems are fed 

 into the machine, a scraping effect is produced 

 on the strips, seeing that the distance between 

 the beaters and the surface of the bed is less 

 than the thickness of the strip. This scraping 

 action effects a double purpose : it attacks the 

 outer skin and also all matters extraneous to the 

 fibre. The strips or stricks of filaments then 

 pass down vertically into the machine, and the 

 separated matters namely, most of the woody 

 parts, the skin, and gummy substances are 

 thrown out to a distance by the centrifugal 

 force of the beator drum. When the stems 

 liav<> entered to within a short distance of 

 their end, the return movement is effected and 

 they are withdrawn. During the withdrawal 

 the following action takes place: At the in- 

 ward curve, or third part of the bed, the fila- 



