DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE. 87 



of from 0.04 to 0.06 millimeter (flax, 0.016; cotton, 0.014 to 0.024; silk, 0.009 to 0.029). 

 (Dr. Hassack.) 



History. — The active interest in China grass, ramie, and rhea began in 1869, when 

 a reward of £5,000 was offered by the Government of India for the best machine with 

 which to decorticate the geeen stalks. The first exhibition and trial of machines 

 took place in 1872, resulting in utter failure. The reward was again offered, and in 

 1879 a second official trial was held, at which ten machines competed, though none 

 filled the requirements, and subsequently the offer was withdrawn. The immediate 

 result was to stimulate invention in many countries, and from 1869 to the present 

 time inventors have been untiring in their efforts to produce a successful machine. 



The first records of Chinese shipments of fiber to European markets show that in 

 1872 200 or 300 tons of the fiber were sent to London, valued at £80 per ton, or about 

 $400. India also sent small shipments, but there was a light demand and prices fell 

 to £30 to £40 per ton for Chinese and £19 to £30 for the India product. In a letter 

 from Messrs. Ide & Christie, the London fiber brokers, discussing the point of demand 

 and supply, received in 1890, it was stated that ramie ribbons had at no time been 

 shipped to Europe from any country in large quantity. Three hundred or 400 tons 

 during the preceding five years would represent the maximum quantity brought 

 from China, while India and other producing countries had sent little more than 

 sample lots and trial parcels. The largest lot of ramie ever received at any one 

 time was in October, 1888, when 120 to 130 tons of ribbons were offered in the Lon- 

 don market. There was nothing like competition for it, and it was sold for £8 to 

 £9, less than half what it cost in China. 



Experiments in manufacture in England date back to the sixties. There were 

 difficulties, however, in the way of preparing the fiber and in adapting machinery 

 for spinning it that made these processes too costly, and after fortunes had been 

 wasted the effort was abandoned. 



Ramie seed is said by Favier to have been first introduced into France in 1836, 

 and in 1844 plants were brought from China by the surgeon of the war ship Favorite, 

 which were grown in the acclimating gardens. While one writer claims that the 

 plant was first brought to the gardens of Europe in 1733, Favier states that Dr. 

 Fras cultivated the plant in the botanical gardens of Munich in 1850, and that it 

 was grown in Belgium in 1860. 



Introduction into the United States dates back to 1855, but the records seem to 

 show that it did not obtain a foothold in Mexico until 1867, the year in which the 

 first American ramie machine was brought to public attention. It is interesting to 

 note that the first shipment of plants into France in considerable number was from 

 America, 10,000 plants having been imported for distribution in France and Algiers 

 in 1868. 



The first French official trials took place in 1888, followed by the trials of 1889, in 

 Paris, at which the writer was present, and which are recorded in Report No. 1 of 

 the Fiber Investigations series. Another trial was held in 1891, and in the same 

 year the first official trials in America took place, in the State of Vera Cruz, in 

 Mexico, followed the next year by the first official trials of American machines in 

 the United States; these being followed by the trials of 1894. The history of the 

 experiments in cultivation in the United States are recorded or referred to in the 

 reports issued by the Office of Fiber Investigations of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture, notably Nos. 1, 2, and 7, to which reference should be made for more 

 detailed statements than are here presented. 



Cultivatiox.— In general terms it may be said that the ramie plant requires a 

 hot, moist climate, with no extremes of temperature, and a naturally rich, damp, but 

 never a wet, soil, the necessary moisture to be supplied by frequent rains or by 

 irrigation ; in other words, such a climate and soil that, when the growing season 

 has commenced, the growth will be rapid and continuous. In the United States the 

 best localities, so far as experiment has determined, are portions of Florida, Mis- 

 sissippi, Louisiana, and Texas on the Gulf, and central California on the Pacific 



