be about 20 per cent, inferior in value. It is, however, still unutilis- 

 able. The small size, or No. 2, machine, a fair number of which are 

 working in India, is, therefore, the one which growers should make use 

 of, and if the land on which their crop is cultivated is of a nature to 

 yield a sufficiently large percentage of long stems, the machine will 

 deal with them satisfactorily and profitably to the grower. 



Expelling the Gums. 



The attention of certain ramie spinners, has been lately drawn to 

 a method of expelling the gums from ramie and removing the inner bark 

 from the stems by passing them through rolling mills, and the writer 

 recently saw samples of the product prepared in this manner, which 

 looked fairly well, and the material will be tested shortly at one or two 

 factories with a view to ascertaining how it degums, and whether or 

 not the fibres are in any way crushed or broken by this method of 

 dealing with them. 



Necessarily in all systems for removing the epidermis from the 

 stem of the plant, the chief essential is that the same shall be accom- 

 plished with as little loss to the quantity of the long fibre (which they 

 contain, and which is the most valuable as a textile product) as possible 

 and in the same manner the method must be capable of dealing suc- 

 cessfully with the short stems, and extracting the fibre which they 

 contain with the very minimum of waste. 



A circumstance of very considerable importance to the ramie 

 grower, and one which doubtless will be investigated by the Economic 

 Products Department of the Government of India, is a statement made 

 in a hand book on the subject of Rhea or Ramie Fibre cultivation, 

 issued some years ago by the Rhea Fibre Treatment Company, of 

 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, the owers also of the Rochdale Rhea 

 Fibre Mills, at Castleton, Rochdale, Lancashire, which was to the 

 effect that there exists a variety of the Bon or Bom Riha, which grows 

 wild in many districts in India and Burma, the fibre yield of which 

 averages from 66 to 70 percent, per ton of fibre degummed, as against 

 a yield of 45 per cent, obtained from the variety Boehmeria Nivea. In 

 these districts, it is stated the true ramie or Rhea, Boehmeria Nivea 

 will not grow so well. 



This remarkable statement in regard to the fibre appears to have 

 escaped general notice, but it is one of very considerable importance, 

 as, should it prove to be the case, and also that this species of the 

 plant will adapt itself to cultivation in the Straits Settlements, then it 

 undoubtedly would be the one to which ramie growers should direct 

 their attention, as their crop would be more valuable on the commer- 

 cial market. 



Cultivation in Johore. 



In the course of a lecture on Ramie Cultivation and Manufacture, 

 which he delivered in 1894, before the Dundee Chamber of Commerce, 

 Mr.J.M. MacDonald, Managing Director of an English Ramie Spinning 



