Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-22
OLD KING COTTON
May be Unseated From His
MOnOpOliStic Throne.
THE FINER RAMIE PLANT
Taken in Hands by Pittsburg Capi.
talists, Who Propose to
CHECK CHINESE COMPETITION.
Long Sought Machinery Found, and the
Tremendous Venture
CHECK CHINESE COMPETITION.
FINALLY LAUNCHED In THIS CITY

industry in this country which promises to
soon become second to none in the textile
fiber culture, except that Of cotton culture.
MANY will recollect that couple Of years
ago, the question of the culture and manu-
facture of the ramie plant was discussed at
a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce,
and that a number of well known citizens,
prominently identified with trade and
manufacture, became interested. The mat.
fer was talked of for some time, but finally
died out. as it seemed, and nothing more
was heard of it except that the people men-
toned had formed a company.
That project has taken definite shape, and
under charter obtained in West Virginia,
the incorporators, Messrs. VIM. NJ. Lyon,
Paul h. Hacke, President; Charles H.
Humbert, Vice President; George R. Shidle,
Secretary. and John NJ. Tiernan, Treasurer,
propose to go to work as fast as circum-
stances will permit and get the business
started as soon as practicable.
They have secured land in Georgia for the
cultivation of the ramie plant, and have
secured the patent for the manufacture of
the necessary machinery in the United
States and Mexico.
THE SOLUTION REACHED.
There has been no trouble in regard to
the successful cultivation of the plant, but
to get a machine that would separate the
fiber has been, until lately, seeming i'm
possibility.
The patents they own have been tested
successfully in England and France, and
all that is needed now is the raw product
and the buildings necessary for work, and it
is the intention to establish factories in va
rious parts of this country as soon as sup
ply OF raw material can be grown. The
charter has recently been obtained by Frank
W Smith, ESQ.,, attorney for the incorpora-
tors
The machine that separates the fiber is
called dicorticator, but behind the name
are halt million dollars, which form the
power that set it in motion.
An idea of what machinery is capable of
doing in this line may be obtained when it
is considered what the Whitney cotton gin
did toward making that staple king in the
commercial world, for cotton is still king,
and were the United States crop to be a fail
ure for two years in succession, several
bankruptcies would follow among civilized
bulge on them.
WHAT THE GIN DID FOR COTTON.
Before Whitney invented his gin a
colored woman could only clean pound of
seed cotton a day. By the use of the gin
I'D q II an1ounr of aifhar steam or amin 4
power {, 200 pounds a day can be cleaned,
one machine doing the work o. 3, 200 women,
representa- capital OF s., 200, 000
The die ), ticator may be hard on the Chi
nese, out they "must go' any how, and they
can't be much injured in consequence.
Here is what is said Of the competitor of
Sea Island cotton, the finest produced in
this country:
The name "ramie'' is an East Indian one,
and the plant produces the fiber called China
grass. Its botanical name is BoehD1eriG
njUed, and it grows both under cultivation
and wild in nearly all tropical countries
and Eastern Asia. 1t is a nettle, but has no
stings. 1t is a perennial, somewhat shrubby,
grows tour feet high, throwing up numerous
stems as thick as the little finger, which
bear opposite, pointed, serrated leaves six
inches long by four inches broad, on long
hairy petioles; their upper surface is dark
with a very white down, suggesting the
specific name, nired, snowy, which makes
the contrast between the two surfaces very
marked.
From time immemorial the plant has
been used in China and other Eastern coun-
tries in the manufacture of a great variety
of fabrics, some as fine and brilliant as silk.
The woven material has been an article of
commerce for centuries. and in France and
England has long been used as a substitute
for or to mix with silk.
In warm countries three crops of stems
are obtained in year, the second affording
the finest fiber. 1t may be raised from |
seed, but the general method is 70 divide |
the old plants and plant very thickly in |
rows five feet apart. They must be planted |
thickly in order to secure straight stems. |
The soil must be rich and well drained, and |
the plant will not stand hard frosts.
HOW All SIN DOES IT.
In northern China the roots are lifted in |
the fall and kept in pits during the winter
The plant was introduced into Jamaica in (
1854, and the next year was put into the bo- |
1auic garden at Washington but no deter |
mined attempt was made to cultivate it un-
til 1867. Then the Southern planters-hav-
ing trouble with their hired help, which |
having newly gotten its freedom, lost its |
took the cultivation of ramie.
Plants were brought from Mexico, where
it had been previously introduced, and the
planters who raised plants for sale, made it
profitable for time, but when the manu-
featuring stage arrived, 1t was found i'm
possible, or at least so considered, to separ-
ATE the fiber by machinery and American
hand labor, even at the low rate of Southern
agricultural wages, could not compete with
Oriental, and the industry was "ruined by
Chinese cheap labor" Various machines |
were invented and tried, but to no purpose.
and the business fell stillborn, except that /
the plant propagators had made money, as
did the importers OF Chinese chickens about
35 wears ago.
As in the latitude of Georgia three crops
OF stemsa year can be harvested. the manu-
facrure can be put in full blast about as
soon as the buildings and machinery can be
put up, and the United States can have a
monopoly, as it has in cotton, until the
Southern hemisphere is settled and deyel-
oped, for the cotton belt, which is also the
ramie belt, running around the northern
half of the globe, is more extensive in the
United States than in the corresponding
part of the Eastern hemisphere The cui- |
ture OF ramie is less expensive than that of |
the cotton plant, and only the cost OF separ.
ating the fiber has hitherto stood in the wav
of its development.