The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-07-22
A NEW RAMIE
FIBER PROCESS
To Reduce Manufacturing Cost
to Six or Seven Cents
a Pound.

NEW YORK, July 2.-At a tim,
when the entire world is eagerly seek
ing for some relief from the higt
prices prevailing on cotton, silk, hemp
fax and wool, the announcement thai
means of cheapening the cost OF
ramie to such an extent that it viii
be available at less than half the price
of cotton, or a figure that will not
exceed six to seven cents per pound
commands the attention of all inter.
ested in the textile trade. Ramie
grown in the United States, it is de,
clared, will solve the problem of sup
plying an abundant and cheap textile
fiber and open up a new industry which
all sections viii profit by.
For many centuries the ramie fiber
grown in China has been used as a
textile, but the process of converting
the fiber into yarn has been tedious
and costly even in the empire where
the cost of labor is at the minimum.
A New York company has been con-
ducting an interesting series of expert
ments in which ramie was taken in
the raw state, bleached and put
through all the processes necessary
for spinning as substitute for cot
ton, fax, hemp and silk. The new
process accomplishes within four hours
the work usually requiring sixteen
hours by the machinery in use in Ger
many where the only successful ramie
mills are now in operation.
The bleaching tanks will take 500
pounds of fiber and bleach it in four
hours, and in a sixteen-hour day 1000
pounds, of noer can be handled. The
best that can be done In the German
factories where a French machine is
used is to bleach $50 pounds in a.
twelve-hour day. In China where hand
work is necessary to prepare and fin
ish the fiber for spinning less than
five pounds can be produced by one
man s labor in a day.
The cost of producing the raw mate
rial is three cents per pound which
makes it far cheaper than cotton. From
1900 to 1900 pounds per acre can be
grown as against 500 pounds, the maxi
ya1a hos
a strength of 100 as compared with
thirty-six for hemp, twenty-five for fax,
thirteen for silk and twelve for cot
ton. The longest fbers average from
two and one-half to ten inches In
length. Samples of ramie made up to
substitute cotton, fax, hemp and silk
fabrics shown by the company include
Iaces of all kinds, jeans, drills, mus
Inns, sheetings, table linen, sewing and
crochet threads, hosiery and underwear,
canvas fer sails, betting, etc, and also
fine tissue to act as substitutes for
silk and to be used for incandescent
nantles.
The tariff on the fiber at present
brings the price up to IS cents per
pound in this country. There is no
'eason why it should not be grown in
his country, as the climate is suited to
t in all of the Southern States, espe-
tally in Mississippi, Louisiana and
Alabama. 1t is now grown in small
Quantities in the East and West Indies
md quite extensively in India as well
IS China, the great market for it.
Gexico. Guatemala and Brazil have also
proved fields where ramie can grow sue
essfully.
Under the new process the expense
f producing ramie would be reduced to
uch low point that it would become
formidable rival for any other fiber,
nd great hopes are held out that Its
ficiencv and value as a substitute Will
e realized by the textile trade. At
resent more than score of firms IN
fermany are using ramie fiber and
lany of them are using it as mix
ure with silk, running one thread OF
ilk and one thread of ramie twisted,
nd on this product they are build
no ND an extensive business.