SOUTHERN HORIZONS 



little later the Newport chemists began exploring the 

 possibilities lurking in the recovered gum. 



At the same time Newport made another experi- 

 mental planting in the Florida Everglades where a 

 lively and promising interest in ramie was stirring. The 

 State Farm at Belle Glade had put in a few acres, and 

 Charles R. Short of Clermont had invented a portable 

 decorticating machine. Later Short set up the first com- 

 mercial degumming plant at the Florida State Farm. 

 So encouraging were the first field tests in the Ever- 

 glades that Newport and United States Sugar, owners of 

 a vast acreage near Clewiston, joined forces and have 

 a planting of five hundred acres of ramie which is just 

 coming into production. Also in the Everglades are plan- 

 tations of the Sea Island Cotton Mills and of Dr. Brown 

 Landone, while the Florida Ramie Products Company, 

 managed by Captain Alexander Kidd and backed by 

 the Johns-Manville Company, has recently purchased 

 five thousand acres of new land. Already there are three 

 practical decorticating machines; one, the Gardiner, 

 especially designed for the small farmer. Half a dozen 

 different processes for degumming, several of which 

 avoid the use of strong alkalies which might tender the 

 fiber, have been perfected. 



The Everglades are off to a flying start and appear to 

 have several important natural advantages. Neverthe- 

 less all the new plantings are not in southern Florida. 

 Climatic conditions will confine ramie pretty closely to 



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