G68 TjiAXSACTTOXS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE, 



branch wlien tlie plant is three feet high ; and again the same when it 

 is five feet high, as the blossom or spike usually grows out of the fork- 

 of the branches. 



For uplands six feet each way will usually give room enough. This 

 checking will make about 1,200 plants to the acre, requiring some 

 two and a half pounds of seed. These 1,200 plants, it is believed, 

 will yield about two and a lialf pounds each of clean seed, which at 

 the rate of three cents per pound, specie, would realize the handsome 

 sum of eightj-one dollars per acre. This result, however, requires 

 not only the large perennial seed (the only sort that should be 

 planted), but good ground, well worked, and a shelter to throw the 

 spikes under as fast as gathered. The greatest losses in Texas have 

 been caused by want of the large perennial seed, and resorting to 

 the small annual bean. Fine results have been attained in Texas by 

 merely putting in a few seeds to make shade for poultr}^, and as an 

 ornament, without any cultivation whatever. 



Profitable experiments can be made by raising one plant in each 

 angle of the rail fences of cotton fields. This will also help to pro- 

 tect the cotton against all destructive insects, including the cotton 

 worm. It may also be found valuable to alternate cotton and the 

 bean through large fields, planting every third, fourth, or sixth row 

 with the bean. 



The Ramie. 



Mr. Gregory has brought north a package of the roots of this plant, 

 and v/ill soon present before the club specimens growing in pots or 

 boxes. At the late State fair of Louisiana a prize was awarded to a 

 grower who entered two bales of this material. When growing it 

 looks, he says, like young wdiite willow^ ; the stalks are round and 

 tapering. As soon in the season as these shoots begin to change their 

 color slightly, they may be cut even with the ground, when another 

 vigorous growth follows. In a long season a third crop will grow, 

 and may be harvested. Tlie Ramie has a long, fine fiber, in appear- 

 ance half way between silk and cotton. It is the fiber of the wood, 

 not the bark, and is separated by a process not unlike the dressing of 

 flax. From one-fourth to one-third of the weight of the stalk con- 

 sists of the fiber. After the woody parts are removed the fiber is 

 dipped in an alkaline solution. In this way the soft parts are all 

 eaten away, and little but the Mdiite threads remain. Ramie sells 

 now in London at from fifty to sixty cents a pound. At present it is 

 used to mix with silli as it has the requisite fineness and gloss. All 



