TCHOU MA, OR URTICA NIVEA. 361 
A stiff soil that has been well worked in autumn is chosen and manured 
with fine muck. In the following spring the plants are transplanted. The 
best time for carrying on this operation is when vegetation commences; the 
next best is when the new shoots appear; and the worst is when the stems 
have attained a considerable size. 
The new plants are placed a foot anda half from each other, and when they 
have been well surrounded with earth they are watered. 
In summer as well as in autumn advantage must be taken of the time 
when the earth has just been moistened by rain. The offsets can be trans- 
planted to places near at hand; but it is essential to have a ball of earth 
around each plant. 
To propagate the ¢chou-ma, proportions of its roots two or three inches 
long are detached by a knife, and are placed by twos and threes in little 
trenches that are about a foot and a half from each other. The roots are 
then surrounded with good earth and watered; the watering is renewed 
three or five days afterwards. When the new stems have attained a certain 
height, the earth must be often hoed. 
If the earth is dry it must be watered. Ifthe plants have to be carried to 
a distance, their roots ought to be surrounded by the soil in which they have 
been growing, well enveloped in leaves of the reed. They are placed, in 
addition to this, in a mat folded so as to exclude them from air and light. 
They may then be carried without danger to a distance of many hundred 
miles. 
The first year, when the plants are a foot high, they are gathered ; they 
are gathered again in the second year. The fibres of the cut stems are fit 
for spinning. : 
In the tenth month of every year, before cutting the offsets which pass 
beyond the roots, the earth is covered with a thick layer of cow or horse 
dung. In the second month the manure is raked off, in order to allow the 
new plants to come up freely. At the end of three years the roots become 
excessively strong. If part of the plants which come up in close tufts were 
not removed, the others would be smothered. 
Gathering the Tchou-ma. 
The échou-ma may be gathered three times a year. When the stems are 
cut, the little shoots springing from the rootstock should be about half an 
inch high. As soon as the large stems are cut, the suckers spring up with 
more vigour, and soon furnish a second crop. If the young shoots be 
too long, the large stems ought not to be cut; but the ground shoots would 
not become vigorous, and would be prejudicial to the development of the 
larger stems. 
The first crop is got in towards the commencement of the fifth month ; 
the second in the middle of the sixth, or at the beginning of the seventh 
month; and the third and last in the middle of the eighth or the beginning 
of the ninth month. The stems of the second crop grow much faster than 
the others, and are by far the best. J : 
After the crop, the stocks of tehow-ma are covered with manure and imme- 
diately watered. 
Peeling the Fibres of the Tchou-ma. 
When the stems are all got in they are split longitudinally with knives of 
iron or of bamboo. The bark is first removed; then the lower layer (which 
is white, and covered with a shrivelled pellicle which comes off by itself) is 
scraped off with a knife. The interior fibres are then seen; they are to be 
removed and softened in boiling water. If the échou-ma be peeled in winter, 
the stems must be previously steeped in tepid water in order that they may 
be the more easily split. 
