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FIBRE AND HEMP INDUSTRY IN STRAITS 

 SETTLEMENTS AND FEDERATED 

 MALAY STATES, 



BY C. J. SCHIRMER. 



Singapore, 19th June 1905. 



The Editor, 



Agricultural Bulletin, 



Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States. 



DEAR Sir, — With reference to the conversations we had re Fibre 

 and Hemp industry in the Straits and Federated Malay States, I take 

 the liberty to give you on this subject my opinion, based on many 

 years' experience. 



Anyone who can obtain the necessary raw material would soon 

 find this trade very profitable, as it justifies systematic cultivation 

 on a big scale, when one considers the comparatively small outlay 

 and the impossibility of obtaining sufficient quantities of the wild 

 plant, but succeed in fibre cultivation in a country where this in- 

 dustry is new and unknown to planters, and the produce unknown 

 to nearly all merchants, the promoter must have patience, courage 

 and a clear knowledge of the business and of what constitutes 

 favourable circumstances. 



The first thing to make a fibre venture work and pay, is not, as is 

 always believed, the mechanical decortication or rather the question 

 of machinery, but, as stated above, to have sufficient and well cultiva- 

 ted and conveniently situated raw material belonging to the factory, 

 situated on a big fresh water river. The best position is the delta 

 where the plantation should be made around the factory (taking 

 care to have the option of hinterland to extend the plantations if 

 required). It should be easy and cheap from the nature of the 

 situation and with the aid of proper means of transport, to carry the 

 product at any moment to the factory, expenses of transport being 

 reduced to the lowest possible cost. 



As leaves of fibre plants contain only between 1 4—5 per cent, dry 

 fibre, it will be seen that to make one ton of dry fibre the manufac- 

 turer must have cut transport and work 20-66 tons of raw material ; 

 on an average, if he works different sorts of fibres 40 tons, and as a 

 rule, I say a factory should not be erected and not worked if it 

 already exists, if it cannot obtain the raw material, delivered at the 

 factory, at a cost not exceeding one-third of the daily European 

 market price of the fibre intended to be manufactured. Say, for in- 

 stance, to-day's market price for Aloes is £30 per ton, 1/3 gives 

 £10 or $100. As the return of Aloe is about 3 per cent, the manu- 

 facturer requires for making one ton of dry Aloe fibre 33 tons of raw 

 material which must not cost more than $100 or 83.35 per ton 

 (Jelivered at the factory. 



