CHINA-GRASS AND RAMIE 



Yield and 

 Prices. 



BCEHMERIA 

 NIVBA 



Financial Aspects 



FINANCIAL ASPECTS OF RHEA. 



Yield in Other Countries. The foregoing remarks have been thrown 

 together with a view to represent all that is actually known regarding 

 the cultivation and manufacture of rhea in India. I have quoted 

 figures of yield and prices obtained for bark and fibre, but I have not 

 attempted to give actual estimates of the cost of production nor of the 

 practical results obtained, because so far as I am aware these can hardly 

 be said to exist in connection with India. It would seem, however (to 

 judge by the yield of bark and of fibre reported from other parts of the 

 world, where rhea cultivation has been conducted on business lines), that 

 we have to suppose that the plant is infinitely less productive in India ; 

 in other words, that India is not well suited for rhea production ; or that 

 the plant has degenerated to a stock very much inferior to that which 

 exists in China, Japan, the Malaya, and America ; or that our system 

 of cultivation is altogether defective and deficient ; or that the Indian 

 results have been much under-stated ; or, lastly, that the returns from 

 other parts of the world have been greatly over-stated. I cannot, there- 

 fore, attempt more than to allude briefly to some of the figures that have 

 been published outside the limits of India. In a report issued by Mr. L 

 Wray, jun., the results of the Perak Government cultivation are given 

 for five experiments. These varied in yield from 1,280 Ib. to 2,508 Ib. 

 of ribbons per acre, or a mean of 1,656 Ib., which gave 1,173 Ib. of cleaned 

 fibre. With so splendid a result (very nearly double the usual figures 

 recorded for India) one would have expected the experiment to have been 

 announced as a financial success, but Mr. Wray tells us that with ribbons 

 at 7 a ton in London, a net loss of $18.30 per acre was sustained. Of 

 Wenchow in China it has been found that one cutting of 80,000 stems 

 yielded 312J Ib. of fibre per acre. It is thus possible that, adding the 

 other cuttings, the total return would have been 900 to 1,000 Ib. of China- 

 grass. 



Mr. E. Mathieu of Singapore has published a highly satisfactory 

 account of rhea cultivation in the form of a review of the results obtained 

 by the Director of the Botanic Gardens of Java. Mr. Mathieu supports 

 his views by reference to parallel results obtained in America and 

 Algeria. He believes that after three or four years' growth a 

 Malayan plantation should yield in four cuttings 20 tons of stems 

 per acre, and that these ought to give 3'75 per cent, of clean dry 

 fibre or 1,680 Ib. per acre, worth in London 24 a ton, which would 

 yield a net profit over working expenses of 102.30 per acre. If this 

 estimate be accepted, the Malay plantations would yield fully double 

 the average outturn mentioned in connection with India. But even such 

 a splendid production falls far short of others that have to be recorded. 

 According to certain returns published in connection with the Keru 

 valley, California, four cuttings are said to have been obtained a year, 

 making a total of 50,400 Ib. of green stems, or a little more than double 

 Mr. Mathieu's estimate for Malayan production and perhaps five times 

 the mean of all the figures given above in connection with Indian 

 experience. Mr. Charles Richard Dodge (Useful Fibre Plants of the 

 World, 89) gives 25 tons of green stems with leaves as a fair average for 

 California, and Hilgard mentions a yield at the Californian Experimental 

 Station (Bull., Nos. 90, 91) of 1,935 Ib. of fibre per acre. From the experi- 

 mental cultivation of a small plot of B. nivea at Kew, it was calculated 



158 



Returns from 

 Other Countries. 



Perak Yield, 

 1,173 Ib. of 



Fibre. 



Wenchow 

 Results. 



Singapore. 



Malay, 1,680 Ib. 



Californian 

 Tield, 1,935 Ib. 



