Se ee ia a ne eee ee 
Se a, a obs 
6l 
the a os when the air is impregnated with moisture, to dry 
Ramie n the open air pei one would be an imponelbilite, 
To not iy diy by artificial means the enormous quantity of stems 
yielded even by a few acres woe ‘entail so much labour in handling, 
and so much kie for buildings and fuel, that it would be altogether 
a hopeless ta 
ne: er- centage of Sipe pi B aater by Ramie stems is estimated at 
t 10 per cent. If t must be first dried before they are 
c 
It miti be suggested that hanvoutiiig the stems should take place in the 
dry season, when sr conditions would be most favourable to drying 
them in the open This Samrin would not be practicable. 
The fad grow Ga daib the r ainy season, and when once ripe they 
must be cut at once. Besides, it is evident that the sooner one crop is 
removed the better will be the prospects of the next. During the dry 
pre the stems grow very slowly, and it has been noticed that such 
ste e short internodes, are very woody, and offer relatively greater 
a ti during the process of decortication. 
OTHER PROCESSES AND MACHINES. 
Of processes and machines not already mentioned, a is desirable to 
refer to one or two for the information of persons w who m y not otherwise 
become aware of them. Tn June aot last yonr Mr. C. Maria , of Durb- 
hungah, Bengal, forwarded a series of sp of Ramie fibre in different 
states of preparation to Kew, and “sted for an opinion upon them. I 
appeared that he had invented a machine, worked by two men in the 
This machine simply separated the fibrous bark from the wood. The 
bark was then operated upon by other processes, and eventually it was 
deprived of gum and mucilage and worked into a ieee fair fibre 
suitable for oe by textile manufacturers. bre was 
reported by Messrs. Ide and Christie to be “long, fairly da Ramie 
“fibre, worth about 281. per ton.” The particulars of Mr. Maries’s 
methods have not been made public; but we understand that a well- 
known firm of merchants in Calcutta has acquired the patent connected 
with heni and the system is now in course of being practically tested on 
a large 
ihe oak columns of the Times there recently appeared an account of 
machine invented by Mr. John Orr Wallace, and placed on view at 
the Irish Exhibition. “This was termed a “ a scutching machine 
“« for cleaning ramie, flax, hemp, &c.” The apparatus is about 6 feet 
high by 4 feet wide, and 5 feet vere It consists of an upper feed table 
36 inches wide, on which the are fed to three pairs of fluted 
rollers which elves: the stems Pein nw sa between five pairs of pinning 
tools, alternating with six pairs of guide rollers. e pinning tools 
somewhat resemble hand-hackles, and may be popularly described as 
very coarse wire brushes. They are attached to two vertical frames, to 
which a horizontal to-and-fro motion is imparted, and the pins regio 
as the two sides approach. The rous materia 
wards by rollers which have an intermittent motion, and at sath 
momentary pause, the pricking pins enter the material and are rapidly 
withdrawn from it. By degrees this curtain is delivered on to a 
sloping prong ba ln table at the bottom of the machine, over which table 
the wo oody substance “be previously passed to a receiver in a crushed 
and semi- sien scare sondia. io perfectly free from fibre, This 
