PBE8T0E —RAMIE FXBBE, 
5 
are noticed* as well as to those which are not, it should be 
remembered that all the statements which are there made 
with regard to the cultivation of the Ramie, are based 
upon experiments which have been made in the district of 
blew Orleans, where, it appears, the climatic conditions 
more nearly resemble than do those of this Island, those 
of certain parts of China and North India where the 
Ramie in indigenous and appears, under skilful cultiva- 
tion, to attain the finest development. 
To the interrogatory of the circular, I feel some regret 
that circumstances compel me to reply in the negative ; 
the more so because, firstly, the introduction of this culti- 
vation, valuable as it certainly is in some other countries, 
would, if it were practicable in this, enlarge the basis of 
the colonial agriculture ; and secondly, because the addi- 
tional American interest, which in all probability the estab- 
lishing the cultivation here would attract to the colony, is 
not secured. It is necessary therefore to deal with only 
the few points which are of primary importance in consi- 
dering the matter to explain on what grounds the profit- 
able cultivation of Ramie in this Island is deemed at pre- 
sent impracticable 
The Ramie plant is what is known technically as an 
herbaceous perennial—that is to say, its normal habit of 
growth consists of the production of stems by elongation 
upwards of more or less underground rhizomes ; which 
stems, having produced seeds, die off annually, leaving a 
store of fleshy rhizomes below to develop into seed-bearing 
stems another year ; such is its habit of growth in extra - 
tropical regions wheie the summer and winter are more 
marked by change ox temperature than in the tropics ; and 
