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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 steins 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 
