176 TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



value and has never been produced in commercial quantities. 

 If it could be obtained economically in large quantities it might 

 be used as a cheap substitute for abaca or sisal. The experi- 

 ment in extracting the fiber of the Chinese banana in Hawaii 

 indicated that this banana yielded about 2 per cent, of a fiber 

 which gave promise of being a good material for use in paper 

 manufacture. It is doubtful, however, whether it could be 

 economically extracted for such purposes. 



RAMIE 



Ramie is a well known and much desired fiber of great merit, 

 but suffers from the disadvantages occasioned by difficulties in 

 extracting and cleaning the fiber. The botanical name of ramie 

 is Boehmeria nwea. It is produced chiefly in China, Formosa, 

 Korea, Assam, Bengal, Mexico, and Caucasus. The United 

 States imports about 4,000 tons of ramie fiber annually. The 

 ramie plant looks like a nettle and attains a height of 6 to 12 

 feet. The fiber is long, exceedingly strong, and is least injured 

 by water of all known fibers except perhaps olona. 



Ramie is best propagated by root division. The plant yields 

 two crops annually and 1,000 pounds is considered a good 

 annual yield of fiber. The green stalks yield about 10 per cent, 

 by weight of degummed fiber. Ramie is extracted by hand 

 stripping, boiling in water, and special machinery devised for 

 the purpose. The gums are then removed from the fiber by 

 treatment with caustic alkalis or dilute acids. Ramie fiber is 

 used in innumerable kinds of cloth, fabrics, cordage, thread, 

 paper, etc. The wholesale price of the fiber is 12 cents or more 

 per pound. The crop offers little difficulty from an agricultural 

 standpoint, but the great difficulties encountered in decortica- 

 tion limit the large extension of the industry. Ramie has been 

 grown experimentally in the Southern States and California. 

 It thrives well in those States, but has not given promise of 

 becoming a commercial industry there. 



