Fibres. 



276 



[May 1907. 



climate, and abundant water supply, and cheap water carriage, one would have 

 expected far greater results. Ribbons are worth £14 per ton in the English market 

 Clean de-gummed fibre is worth £50 per ton. Clean undegummed fibre from the plant- 

 ation is worth about £24 per ton in London. At this latter price, 220 tons would be 

 worth £5,280. or a return of £880 per annum spread over the six years since 

 commencement. Decorticating machines, motive power, expenses of management, 

 labour, freights, &c. have all to be deducted. 



" Mr. J. Macdonald (of Macdonald, Boyle & Co., London) estimated the cost of 

 000 acres of Ramie under cultivation from planting to extraction of the fibre at £6,477 

 17s , and the machinery at £6,775. 



" At the end of the first vear the product might be estimated at 450 tons of 

 clean fibre, ready for the manufacturer. This, at 4|-d. per lb., amounts to £18,900, 

 Deducting the cost of production as above, also £900 for freight, and £260 for broker- 

 age and incidentals, a working profit remains of £11,262 3s. 



" This estimate, so extremely sanguine, was based on a three aud a half to 

 four years old Ramie plantation. Yet Mr. Macdonald begins operations six months 

 after planting ! An obvious discrepancy. Practical men would be better pleased to 

 see a well-considered moderate statement work out a possible profit of £5 per acre 

 than to be met with £12 profit per acre the first year, and well nigh £50 in the second, 

 from a cultivation which, so far as we know, no one has yet tried, except the Rengal 

 syndicate above described, on a scale sufficiently large to justify reliable estimates 

 for a plantation, at any rate in the Eastern world. 



Queensland planters would not be likelyto drop sugar, cotton, pineapples, 

 &c, for a return of £880 per annum from 1,950 acres, and from which return heavy 

 expenses have to be deducted." — Kew Bulletin, No 1, 1907. 



