KA.M1K, CULTIVATION AND MANUF.U TU;K OF. 





ii" return or fertilization of any kind has taken 

 place, the crop of Isiid \\;i> fully as large a- any 

 previous i.ne within the I'mir years in which 

 weighings had lieen made." 



1- rench authorities >ay that in nil parts of the 

 world ramie is most successfully grown with- 

 in t he belt bounded !iy the forty-thud parallels; 

 and the nearer to the equator and more moist 

 i he atmosphere, the greater the success, given 

 the chief necessity, a porous soil. Within the 

 lir>t year after planting the ramie yields at 

 least one good crop in northerly countries, and 

 two in the South : and thereafter for five years 

 ii yields from two to five cuttings a year. In 

 France, Spain, and elsewhere, between the 

 thirty-eighth and the forty-second parallels, the 

 yield is about two crops a year; in the region 

 \>f the thirtieth parallel there are three crops, 

 and still nearer the equator, as India, Algiers, 

 Florida, etc., there are four good annual crops; 

 in Mexico and in Venezuela there are at least 

 live. In well-cultivated soils one acre grows 

 about 1,400 plants, and the yield, weighed dry 

 and without the leaves, is, in round numbers, 

 first year. 3,500 pounds; second year, 7.000 

 pounds; third year, 1,058 pounds; fourth and 

 subsequent years, 1,500 pounds, which is some- 

 times increased to 1,800 pounds. 



In harvesting, the stalk is cut within 6 inches 

 of the ground, when on the oldest portions the 

 outside bark begins to turn brown. In dry 

 climates it can be gathered in large masses and 

 so transported to be decorticated green, or to be 

 dried in the sun; but in moist climates great 

 care must be taken to decorticate it green at 

 once and on the field, or to dry partly by kiln. 

 Most of the ramie produced in the world at 

 present is grown in China, where it has been 

 cultivated and the fiber made into a variety of 

 useful articles from time immemorial. Accord- 

 ing to M. Favier, it is the white ramie, or nivea, 

 ilia! is there cultivated to the highest degree of 

 fiber quality yet known, equal to, if not sur- 

 passing, the best results obtained elsewhere with 

 the green ramie. The principal fields are in the 

 basin of Yang-tse-Kiang river, in the provinces of 

 K iangsi, Hupeh, and Szchuen, between 30 and 33 

 north latitude and 100 and 115 east longitude. 

 Kioo-Kiangand Hankow are the shipping ports, 

 from which in 1891 the maximum export of raw 

 material to all countries was 10,000 tons. Most 

 of this goes to Japan. Up to within a few years, 

 the United States Agricultural Department is in- 

 formed, on good authority. 400 tons (at $130 a ton) 

 would represent the maximum quantity sent to 

 all European markets taken together. To the 

 United States there has been no export of this 

 fiber, except by experimenters in its manu- 

 facture. 'I he soil of the tchou-iini districts of 

 China is red clay, mixed with sand, very rich of 

 itself, and restored about every five years. The 

 cuttings are made in May (when the longest and 

 best fiber is obtained), in August, and in Octo- 

 ber. The stalks are thrown at once into water 

 and rotted (as with hemp), then beaten with a 

 flail, and the outer bark is carried off by water. 

 Another method is to strip off the leaves and 

 outer bark with a knife and slit the fiber into 

 ribbons. The inner bark, or bast, containing 

 the fiber, is dried by two processes. Such liber 

 as is intended for sewing twine and grass cloth is 



dried over a charcoal fire, which gives it a light 

 color, although the Chinese maintain that the 

 light-colored fiber is produced by a different soil 

 from that of the brown fiber, used for fish nets, 

 cordage, etc., which is dried in the sun. The 

 separation of the bark from the bast is done by 

 women and children, and the rudeness of the 

 method tends to injure the fiber as well as to 

 enhance its cost. The yarn for weaving cloth 

 and the many other working materials are made 

 out of the fiber by hand, and without difficulty 

 the gum (one of the chief obstacles in machine 

 work) is removed by soaking in hot water for a 

 short time before using. About 1887 a British 

 merchant of Hankow set up a plant for prepar- 

 ing the fiber by machinery at the small town of 

 Wu-sueh, 80 miles from Kioo-Kiang. It is said 

 that the experiment was successful for a year, 

 after which, the natives, believing that there 

 must be a great demand for the fiber, raised the 

 price of the stalks till it was impossible to nin 

 the plant at a profit. The Chinese for centuries 

 have used the ramie fiber for fish lines and cord- 

 age, on account of its superior firmness and im- 

 putrescibility. The outer garment, the long blue 

 robe that is worn by nearly all the Chinese peo- 

 ple, and also the exquisite cambrics for the 

 underwear of the nobility, are manufactures of 

 the tchou-ma. 



Varieties of the plant have long been grown 

 in India, Japan, the Sunda Islands, East Indies, 

 especially near Lahore ; in Java, Borneo, Suma- 

 tra, Algeria, and Egypt everywhere that it is 

 known and where hand labor is cheap enough 

 to be employed in separating the fiber from the 

 bark. Experimentally it has been raised in 

 Transcaucasia, in Hungary, southern France, 

 Italy, Spain, and in the British island of Jersey, 

 only to prove, however, that the European 

 climates can not produce remunerative crops. 

 In the Western Hemisphere it flourishes in the 

 West Indies, Hawaiian Islands, Mexico, Guate- 

 mala, Colombia, Brazil, and in many parts of 

 the United States. 



The introduction of ramie into countries 

 where hand labor has a price has been impracti- 

 cable until some mechanical, chemical, or other 

 labor-saving process could be found to separate 

 the bark from the bast (decorticate) and remove 

 the gum from the fiber. Two plans have been 

 pursued in the effort to accomplish this. One is 

 the " wet " process, in which the green stalk is 

 operated upon, requiring appliances somewhat 

 distinct from those used in the preparation of 

 hemp or flax fiber. This seems to have the 

 best success in countries having a constantly 

 moist atmosphere. For this, the first process 

 is a breaking of the brittle and brash stems, 

 fresh from the field and stripped of their leaves, 

 by a modification of the ordinary breaking pro- 

 cess applied to dry stems of hemp. Then the 

 stalks are rolled into bands for the better preser- 

 vation of the parallelism of the fiber, ana dried 

 by artificial heat, till gum and bark are brittle 

 enough to be removed by beating and combing. 

 Sometimes the crude fiber is passed directly into 

 the alkaline bath (mostly of common soda). 

 which is always required to remove the last of 

 the gummy matter. The final process is comb- 

 ing. In the ' dry " process the mechanical oper- 

 ations are substantially the same as in the case 



