60 
5 th OE for machinery for, and methods of, decorticating Rhea 
“ was held, the question of distr ibuting prizes was duly taken into 
“ Embassy by the French Ministry of Agriculture, none the 
. “ advortised iE were given, the jury having only mae the Tontowi 
‘ing awards :— rancs to . de Latuteahe: 2, Place des 
e “ Batignolles, Pai 400 francs each to Aas Compagnie Américaine 
A __ des fibres, 18, adway, New York, and to M. Armand, whose 
machine v was sb Siar by M. Barbier, "6, Boulevard Richard Lenoir, 
<é 
ort on the subject of the competition will be published in tke 
=. « Bulltin de P eis iculture before the issue of the November number 
of that periodical.” 
These are, briefly stated, the results of the Paris trials on Ramie. 
That the results are unsatisfacto ory, and disappointing, and fall far short 
of the estimates of the inventors, there can be no doubt. It is probable 
that a fresh series of trials will be inaugurated next year in connexion 
with the Pa ris Exhibition of 1889; and if the value of the prizes is 
THE FAVIER SYSTEM. 
It will be pra that there was no trial this year of m Favier 
system, which is in operation in TS and described in the Kew 
Bulletin for Jina 1888, pp. 145-149. Nor was there a trial of the 
Death machine (constructed by Death and Ellwood, of Leicester), which 
has been in use, experimentally, in many parts of the world. Th 
Favier process is being worked privately, and is therefore not available 
to the public. The fi ‘hithe to produced h n exclusively used 
who has long taken a deep interest in the Ramie fibre, was a member of 
the jury at the Par is trials, and the articles which he has contributed on 
the subject to the Je ournal de l Industrie Progressive of October 7 et seg., 
may be looked upon as embodying the views of one of the best informed 
of French experts on the present position of the Ramie question. 
THE TREATMENT OF DRY AS AGAINST GREEN RAMIE STEMS. 
Amongst the French pe ze attached an E beyond their 
value to machines for cleaning Ramie in the dry s his has 
arisen partly, no doubt, p the fact that the Favier eaters the = 
ne which hitherto has obtained a measure of success, requires the 
eae to be dried before at are treated. An idea was also Selen 
in France that in some parts of the country it might be possible for the 
farmers to grow one or ain crops of Ramie, and cut and harvest the 
stems in summer and work them off at their ina during the winter. 
that France could compete with tropical act cal countries, 
utu 
exploitation of Ramie is treated as a question which more nearly 
es Algiers and the French tropical Colonies 
As s India and our own Colonies, it is essential that Ramie 
anA should work upon the green stems, and not upon the dry. In 
