M. Favier informs me that there will be the greatest difference in the stalks from several cuttings. Some will be tough and unyielding, while others will give up their fiber readily, and it will be of the best quality. These suggestions are thrown out to urge upon the Southern growers who are interested in ramie culture the importance of making a most careful study of the cultivation of the plant under different conditions, that they may learn all there is to learn regarding it, and regarding best manner of growing it in American soil. And I would urge upon those who are experimenting with decorticators and processes to endeavor to obtain stalks grown in different sections and produced under varied known conditions, that all points may be fully covered.

Mr. Favier has produced certain good results in Europe by controlling under one direction and making consecutive the experiments with cultivation, decorticating, degumming, and manufacture. In this way one condition is modified to meet the requirements of another, and with an intelligent oversight of the whole field the chance for mistakes through blind experiment is proportionately reduced and many difficulties successfully overcome. In the same manner, experiments in cultivation and the cleaning of the fiber should proceed together in the South to produce the best results, for the two branches of the industry are so closely connected, both necessarily must be carried on upon the farm. One of the problems which we must settle for ourselves is suggested in the question whether it is best to decorticate the stalks green or dry. M. Favier favors the dry method and produces some strong arguments in support of his views which may be applicable to the situation in America. On the other hand, Dr. Morris and the French official experts offer strong counter arguments to prove that the drying of a large quantity of stalks is impracticable and out of the question. Certainly, if the ramie trials in Paris demonstrated anything, they demonstrated that there are many difficulties in the way of working a large quantity of stalks in the green state. In the limits of this report, however, there is little space for a proper discussion of all the pros and cons of the subject. Enough for the present to note some of the conditions which will confront the Southern ramie-grower, when the industry will have become general. A climate that will make it essential for him, if he works his stock green, to decorticate many tons in a very few days, or the ramie, just right when he commenced to work it, will often be too tough and dry for his green-working machines before he completes his crop. This means the use of many machines and a large force of laborers, who must be especially hired for the occasion. It also means the careful after-drying of tons of green ribbons, to avoid fermentation in mass, before he can baie them for market. Further than this, unless the coming ramie decorticator is a cheaper machine than those now under experiment, very few farmers will be able to purchase them, which will necessitate a central mill system. With such a system the harvest

See Summary of the Situation, at the close of this chapter.

ing of the crop green for immediate decortication is entirely out of the question. The transportation of 20 tons of ramie stalks even 2 miles, means the carriage of 16 tons of water that distance. Then if for any reason the stalks can not be put through the machines when received and must lie for twenty-four hours, a certain deterioration of the fiber will ensue from fermentation, or sometimes, from mildew. With the dry system a short-handed farmer would cure his crop in the field, house the stalks, or shelter them near by, and in a time most convenient for himself, in connection with the other work of the farm, attend to the cleaning of the fiber, or haul to the central mill as wanted. To summarize: If decorticated green the entire crop must be worked up in a very few days. If dry, a farmer can take his time, and, as we have shown, the best machines of to-day require a great deal of time.

Among the encouraging evidences of progress in the United States may be mentioned the renewed interest that has been developed, in the past year especially, not only in the South but in different parts of country, in the matter of experiments with machinery and processes for the preparation of the fiber. Even the cultivation of the plant is attracting attention in various quarters, and some new areas will be planted the present season, most of the work being under the direction of ramie companies, or conducted by men who have studied the question in all its economic bearings, and are supposed to know what they are doing. This is quite another matter from hap-hazard embarkation in the industry by individual farmers who have little money to risk in such enterprises, and less knowledge to guide them in an undertaking, where loss, under present existing conditions, is almost inevitable. In this connection reference is made to a letter produced in the chapter on jute and other fibers, which explains fully this point. This Texas farmer was induced to plant 20 acres of jute, on the promise that a decorticator would be available when the crop was ready to cut. His statement that the crop was never harvested because the decorticator was not produced is the melancholy sequel to the story. He has probably had enough of jute culture. A few Southern farmers have suffered from ramie culture in a similar manner.

On Oakbourne plantation, near La Fayette, La., I am informed that 90 acres of ramie were under cultivation last year, and as far as the question of mere cultivation was concerned the experiment was successful. I was informed also that ramie was decorticated on the farm last season, and several bales of the fiber sent to New Orleans, though nothing could be learned by the Department of their final disposition. Effort was also made to secure samples of the fiber, but none have been received up to the present time. Recent outside advices, however, prove that the promoters of the enterprise have found themselves confronted with the knotty decorticator problem, and for the present matters are at a standstill, though the experiments will proceed this season.

Through Mr. Felix Fremerey, of the Ramie Planting Association of Texas, located at Yorktown, it is learned that Mr. Frederick Natho, who produced the fine samples of ramie shown by the Department at the Paris Exposition, will plant a large area this season on the lands of the Pioneer Irrigation Company at Pecos City.

The Department is also informed from another source that small areas will be planted in Florida. The Ramie Company of America, of which Mr. Burnet Landreth, of Philadelphia, is president, will put in limited areas in Bristol, Pa., in Virginia, in Florida, and Alabama, the roots to be used for extending cultivation another year. I am also informed that there are plantations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, and on the Pacific slope, where small areas will be grown the present season, and at some of the State agricultural experiment stations a few roots will be planted. It is to be hoped that the cultivation of these small areas, will continue, and that those who grow ramie even in a small way will make careful notes of their experiments and observations, for there is not the slightest doubt that the men who are most familiar with the details of the agricultural side of the question, when other questions have been satisfactorily settled, will be the first to profit from growing the fiber commercially.

The subject of American machines and processes is an interesting one. It was intended when the present report was being outlined to devote a chapter to their consideration. Very little material has been obtained, however, and rather than make an imperfect and incomplete report on this most important branch of the subject, it has been thought wisest to delay the publication of this matter until definite statements can be made. In this connection it is hoped that all who are interested in machines or processes for the cleaning and preparation of ramie fiber will send such descriptions of them, as they may see fit, with claims as to capacity, etc., to the Department of Agriculture, for record, or for examination if desirable. The recent correspondence in the fiber section of departmental work attests the wide-spread interest that exists in this matter, and it is earnestly hoped that further communications will be received. In this connection attention is called to Appendix B, at the end of the report.

Before closing this subject, however, it may be interesting to record the recent experiments of Mr. Charles Toppan, of Salem, Mass., in degumming and manufacturing ramie fiber from the raw product grown in China. Under instructions from the Department of Agriculture, last January I visited Mr. Toppan at his chemical laboratory in Salem, where the details of his process for degumming ramie were examined with greatest interest; thence to the works in Peabody, Mass., where the raw fiber is treated by the ton; and thence to Providence, R. I., where, in company with Mr. Toppan and his son, Mr. Arthur L. Toppan, Mr. John Richie, jr., of Boston, and Messrs. Thomas Mabbett and Benjamin M. Earle, of Providence, the entire process of preparing and

spinning the degummed ramie on woolen machinery was witnessed to the point of yarn production. The yarn has already been produced in quantity, and I am informed finds a ready market in New York City, at good prices. In a recent letter received from Mr. Toppan he says:

I am now carding and spinning yarns on both woolen and cotton machinery, no changes being made with either. I have spun commercially both coarse and fine yarns, and this by the ton. These yarns bring 75 cents to $1 per pound in the gray; and in colors $1.50 to $2 per pound. You will note in the samples sent I have a jet black-a color never produced in ramie before, as I am informed. Cotton, worsted, and silk colors all take readily and are fast. We are in the market for Americangrown ramie, paying the market price for the same quality of ramie ribbons that we are now using. The decortication is an important part of the treatment. There are many decorticators in the field, all having the same vital defects regarding quantity and simplicity of construction.

Recently some beautiful samples of fringes have been received from Mr. Toppan, which are already on the market, and orders have been received by him for yarns for the manufacture of sail cloth, hard twisted yarns for hammocks, and some other manufactures, specimens of which are early promised.

From a knowledge of Mr. Toppan's process I am satisfied that the important results he has attained in the manufacture are due to the fact that the degumming is carried only to the point where a filasse is · produced, which, when separated and broken into short lengths on the fearnaught and garnet machines, is sufficiently soft and pliant to work well on woolen machinery.

It should be borne in mind, however, that the fiber, in the condition in which it is left after drying, is only applicable to one form of spinning. In Europe, ramie has been worked almost wholly upon line-spinning machinery, where it is necessary to keep the filaments straight, or parallel, like flax or silk. Both silk and woolen machinery have been used abroad, of the latter, that for working "long wool," though the use of flax machinery, with modifications to adapt it to all the reqirements of the new fiber, has been thought to give the best results. With the process under consideration there is more or less tangling or interlacing of the filaments which would make it quite difficult to prepare the fiber for line spinning without some loss. Even with the best systems of degumming followed abroad, and I was told there were several factories for the purpose, there is more or less of this trouble, and in French manufacture a large percentage of waste fiber is produced which must be sold at a low price for other uses. It would appear, therefore, that perfectly satisfactory results in this branch of the manipulation of the fiber have not been attained in either country. Mr. Toppan's discoveries are important, but to this extent he does not cover the whole ground. This tangling of the filaments, when the fibrous mass is manipulated in solutions, is one of the many difficulties that enter into the ramie problem. Regarding the Toppan experiments, however, this much is proved, that by spinning a short length fiber in

the form of wool, it is possible to utilize all "waste" from combing, even should it amount to 60 per cent., in a form of manufacture that makes it about as valuable as the straight fiber that has been combed out. If these New England experimenters have done nothing else. they have shown how to degum and spin ramie in an economical manner, and have been the first American manufacturers who have actually placed ramie products on the market, and made a demand for the raw material in large quantities.

Since the preparation of this report a small sample of cloth for suitings has been received from Mr. Burnet Landreth, president of the Ramie Company of America. A few yards of this fabric were manufactured for the company (made February 20, of this year) on woolen machinery, from American and Chinese ramie, a very little cotton having been mixed with the fiber to facilitate the operation of spinning. Figures as to price of the goods were not given, nor the name of the woolen mill stated. The American ramie was grown on the farm at Bristol, Pa.

There are two forms of the Chinese product, as has been previously stated, the white and the green, costing practically the same as imported, yet in manufacture showing considerable difference in value from a variation in the percentages of loss both in preparation and spinning. This suggests the idea that when ramie is grown commercially in America there will be great differences in quality at first, and a new difficulty will arise, of establishing standards and fixing values. And in this connection I shall await with great interest the result of the first trials of manufacture with American-grown ramie produced in commercial quantity. The imported "grass" thus far has been used in manufacture, and if Mr. Toppan's enterprise should be greatly extended, it is a question whether he will not find himself in exactly the same position in which other ramie spinners in Europe have found themselves placed-hampered by a small and uncertain supply of the raw material. Mr. Toppan states that he will purchase American-grown ramie at the market price of the foreign, if it is of the same quality, which, with duty and transportation across the sea added, amounts to about 9 cents a pound.

As to the question of quality, the Chinese article, as hand-stripped and cleaned, is brighter than any machine-prepared I have yet seen, some of the machine-prepared being simply in the form of ribbons or flat strips of fiber with the outer pellicle still adhering. This could not be graded with the thoroughly cleaned imported grass, though the Providence manufacturers would prefer it in this form to ramie cleaned chemically, which might not give so good results with their process. Those who may have ramie to sell in the future, therefore, will do well to ascertain the exact form in which it will be purchased.