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were ground immediately after kiln-drying; otherwise they would gather dampness. After crushing, the grinding was done in a common grist-mill. It was then packed in vessels, like flour, and was ready for market.

So far as I have been able to ascertain, the culture of madder is not carried on to any extent in this country at the present time. We have a suitable climate and productive soils. The greatest obstacle to success with it seems to be the high price of agricultural labor and the scarcity of casual or irregular labor, which renders it difficult to obtain help at the precise season when required. Another reason is found in the proverbial disinclination of our people to agricul tural or any other species of productive industry which requires three years to secure returns. It seems to be a remunerative crop, if it can be produced under favorable circumstances. By the selection of a proper soil and a very favorable climate, (perhaps in the southern States or in California, where its constant growth might produce an excessive yield with labor of German women or children, or Chinamen,) with system and labor-saving appliances in cultivating and preparing it, a profitable result might be secured. It is very proper and highly desirable that a fair and persistent trial should be made to overcome the diff culties which have interfered with the enterprise thus far.

If there are those who would make another effort at the present time, let them choose a southern or southwestern aspect, and select a deep, rich, sandy, and calcareous loam, free from all weeds. Let it be ploughed early in the autuma. and again turned up into ridges before the winter frosts set in, so that the soil may be finely pulverized in spring, when the beds are prepared and the sets planted. The ground should be dry before planting.

As a preparation for planting, the soil should be thoroughly and deeply pul verized, and well-rotted manure well incorporated with it. The sets, taken from plantations two or three years old, should have roots four or five inches long. he roots should be dipped in a thin paste of fine rich earth and water, and set with a dibble, leaving the crown above the surface and the earth properly com pacted about the roots. During the summer months clean culture is required, with hoe or cultivator, or, while the plants are young, with a light plough; and in the autumn, after the tops decay, the plants should be earthed up for the winter, as a protection against frost.

The following extract from a note received from Mr. M. B. Bateham, of Columbus, Ohio, fomerly edirtor of the Ohio Cultivator, corroborates the views herein expressed:

"I believe the business has been entirely discontinued in Ohio, and I have no knowledge of its being practiced in any other State. The reasons for this are not from any lack of adaptedness of soil or climate, but simply because the business requires much labor, which must be done by hand, and can only be carried on to advantage near large towns, where Germans or other cheap laborers can be readily obtained at special times when wanted. This was the cause of the abandonment of the business by Mr. Swift and others who have tried it in Ohio. My own experiment, near Columbus, was on soil found unsuited to the purpose. It was too rich and clayey, (alluvial river bottom.) Good sandy alluvium is found well adapted to this crop. For the past few years the price of labor has been too high to encourage any one to engage in madder growing."

CHINA GRASS.

BY J. R. DODGE, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE.

The China grass of the East is attaining importance in the commercial and manufacturing circles of Europe. Specimens of the plant in the garden of the department, and of its fibre in the museum, have attracted much attention, and require a brief mention in this report.

It is a member of the nettle tribe, the Balmeria nirea, formerly known as Utica nivea. It is called "tchou-ma" in China. A variety in Sumatra, the Bmeria tenacissima, (of Roxburgh,) is known as rami, kalmoi, or calloee hemp. The rhea, of Assam, is the same plant. It is understood that these two varieties B. nivea and B. tenacissima) are distinct, though their fibre is very sitalar, and for all practical purposes identical.

Other nettles produce a good fibre. The Bahmeria puya, of India, yields a fibre having a commercial value nearly equal to the B. nirea. Urtica heterophylla, or the Nilgiri nettle, which abounds among the Nilgiri hills and other puts of India, produces what is known as "vegetable wool," which commands 40, or $400, per ton in England.

A specimen of very strong fibre, from a variety of nettle found in Minnesota, has been received at the department, but the accompanying fragments of the lant were in a condition too imperfect to identify its botanical classification. It was s nt by S. W. Pond, of Shakopee, Minnesota, who represented it as a mparatively abundant wild product of that vicinity.

It is a plant very susceptible of cultivation and propagation, in various medes, increasing readily by seed and suckers. Its growth is rapid and luxuriant, vieing in vigor with the rankest tropical weeds. It thrives in a moist mate, but is not very particular as to soils. P. L. Simmonds, editor of the Technologist, says of it: "So rapid is the growth of this plant, that, by careful servation, the colonial botanist of Jamaica found one of its shoots attain the height of six and a half feet in fourteen days, and ultimately eight and a half bet; but in good land it would exceed this by two feet, while in China and he Last Indies, where it is highly cultivated, eight feet is the height mentioned now makes, from which fibre six feet long is obtained."

Bahmeria tenacissima was brought into Calcutta from Bencoolen, in 1803, Dr. Roxburgh, and cultivated in the botanic garden, under his direction, for veral years. Its cultivation was so extended that, in 1814, specimens of its fore, sent to England, were experimented upon, with so favorable a result, as to Strength and other valuable qualities, that the Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures awarded a silver medal to Captain Joseph Cotton, of the East India Company, for its introduction. A practical difficulty arose to prevent its immediate use for textile purposes. The processes employed in the preparation of flax and hemp and other common fibres were found entirely inappl cable to the reduction of nettle fibre. Of course the primitive and wastefu mode practiced by the natives-scraping by hand-was not to be consid ered. The practice of the Todawars, who previously boil the stems in water, or of the Malays, who steep the stems in water for ten or twelve days, was sufficiently effective for the requirements of Asiatic manufacture, but useless in the manufactories of civilized nations. Maceration was tried, but it was ascertained

that the fibre itself was destroyed more easily than the glutinous matter that cemented it together. Several machines, intended to break the unretted stems. were originated, tested, and abandoned during the forty years that followed its introduction. A patent was obtained, in 1849, by L. W. Wright & Co., for a process for preparing this fibre, which removed, to a great extent, the practical difficulties preventing its use. It consists of an ingenious arrangement for boiling the stems in an alkaline solution, after steeping twenty-four hours in cold water, and twenty-four hours longer in water of a temperature of 90°. The fire is then thoroughly washed in pure water, and then subjected to the action of a current of high pressure steam till nearly dry.

Considerable quantities of "China grass" are now imported into England, and a new impetus has been given to trade by recent successes in attempts to perfect the processes of its manufacture. Beautiful specimens of China grass goods were exhibited at the international exhibitions of 1851 and 1862. Samples of the various beautiful products of this fibre have recently been received from the most successful of its manufacturers, Messrs. Joseph Wade & Sons, Bradford, England, and may be examined at the museum of the department. The following correspondence of the State Department, promptly forwarded to this office by Mr. Seward, illustrates clearly the present condition of this interesting manafacture:

UNITED STATES CONSULATE, SHEFFIELD AND BRADFORD,

At Bradford, December 16, 1865.

SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith a report from Mr. McClintock. vice-consul at Bradford, embodying some interesting facts in relation to the minufacture at this place of the "China grass," so called, by Messrs. Joseph Wads

& Sons.

The Messrs. Wade have been experimenting with this vegetable production. during the last seven years, and have now brought its manufacture to a considerable degree of perfection. Many other persons have attempted the same thing. but have all, with perhaps one exception, been unsuccessful.

The grass is said to be produced in considerable quantities in China, but the continuance of the civil war in that country has interfered with its production. and it now sells in London at the rate of eighty pounds per ton.

It is believed that many parts of the United States are favorable for its growth. especially the cotton-growing States, and perhaps Kentucky, Maryland, Misouri, and other States lying in nearly the same latitude.

I presume that the consul general at Shanghai will, if application be made to him, be able to communicate full information in regard to its culture, atd thus be instrumental in introducing into the United States a very valuable preduction.

I will forward to the department the small case of samples referred to in Mr. McClintock's report.

I have the honor to remain, sir, your obedient servant,

Hon. F. W. SEWARD,

Assistant Secretary of State.

GEORGE J. ABBOT,
United States Consul.

CONSULATE Of the UNITED STATES,
Bradford, December 15, 1865.

SIR: Upon your last visit to Bradford you expressed a wish for further inform ation concerning the successful manufacture of the so-called "China grass" at this place. In accordance with this desire, and concurring with you in the belief

that there is at present a most auspicious opening for the introduction into the United States of that valuable production, with a view to its culture upon a very large scale, I beg, through you, to call the attention of our government and people to some of the facts and arguments which seem to render its early introduction so desirable.

The Chinese have for centuries made, by hand-labor, various descriptions of "grass cloth," well known in America and Europe, and often of great strength and beauty, from the fibre of Behmeria cordata, or Urtica nivea, known to commerce as China grass. Large quantities of the grass have, at various times, been brought over to England, and probably also to the United States, in the hope of finding a market among the dry goods manufacturers, who are always on the lookout for new materials; but it has hitherto been, and is even now, found impossible to produce a true "grass cloth" by machinery. The fibre is rather brittle, though very strong, and it is found that the China grass cloth of commerce is only to be woven by hand-labor, in which, of course, the Chinese themselves are beyond the reach of competition.

Large quantities of the grass have therefore been in store in London and else where for years. Some enterprising manufacturer would occasionally purchase a few tons with which to make experiments, but the only result, for a long time, was that he who experimented the most lost the most. Thousands and even tens of thousands of pounds were sunk by one and another, who each fancied for a time that he had discovered the true method for working up this intractable substance. Whether it was tried in the United States or not, I do not know; but the concurrent testimony of my American friends in the trade is that no one is now successfully working it at home.

Within two or three years past, however, several firms in this neighborhood, especially Messrs. Wade & Sons, of Bradford, and a company at Wakefield, have succeeded, by chemical means, in bringing the fibre into a state most closely resembling the best mohair, or other bright worsted, and have worked up great quantities of the refined material, as a substitute for worsted, in many kinds of stuff goods; always, however, in combination with cotton, (the warp being cotton and the weft of the China grass,) as they have not yet been able to work it properly alone.

The manufacture of worsted goods (that is, of goods made of long-staple wool, as distinguished from short-staple or ordinary wool) has become an immense trade, of which Bradford has, at present, almost a monopoly, although the manufacture has lately been extending in many parts of New England. Four-fifths of these goods are of mixed material-that is, are made with cotton warps. And for many articles of the kind, especially for those requiring a stiff, strong, and cool texture, combined with a glossy, silky appearance, it is found that the prepared China grass makes the very best material.

Of course the grass manufacture is yet in very few hands, of which Messrs. Wade are the most important; but its development already, even within the last few months, has been signally rapid. The market value of the raw material Las, for some years past, maintained itself at the very high rate of about eighty pounds per ton, which price, it is supposed, cannot be much lessened for many years to come. Two things are certain in this respect: one, that there is now, and will be, here a practically limitless market for all the raw grass that can be imported, at from £70 to £80 per ton; the other, that under any fluctuations of the market, the material is intrinsically so valuable that it will always, in the future, command a price as high as that of cotton, and nearly or quite as high as that of worsted itself, if not even higher.

Here, then, is a great and rapidly increasing market for a certain vegetable production at a very high price. In America we have, on the other hand, vast tracts of country, which being in the same latitude and with very much the same climate as those districts of China of which the grass is native, we should be

able to grow this production to great advantage. Why not, then, introduce its culture? I submit that these facts constitute a prima facie case for the very serious consideration both of the Agricultural Department at Washington and of our enterprising planters and farmers throughout the south.

Messrs. Wade, who have, by the way, been firm friends of our government throughout the recent rebellion, have very kindly consented to furnish me, for transmission to the United States, with a small collection of samples of the China grass in its various stages of preparation, and also of some of the varieties of cloth prepared from it. As soon as they have it in readiness, I shall have great pleasure in forwarding them, with an explanatory list. If possible, also, I shall try to secure a small quantity of the seed.

It seems certain that the manufacture of the grass fibre will be established in our country at no distant day; but in the mean time there is a market in England for all that we can conveniently grow. It is for our planters simply a ques tion of experiment with the seed, having in view the market price of the raw product. Successful experiments have been made very recently in Java and in India, proving that the grass will grow in any climate warm enough for the culture of cotton and sugar, provided the ground ehosen be sufficiently moist.

I venture to suggest that further information, as well as quantities of the seed, &c., can doubtless be furnished by our consular officers in China, especially, perhaps, by the consul at Hankow, that place being the chief market for the grass, which is brought thither from the interior, and often from a great distance. I have the honor to be, sir, most respectfully, your obedient servant, EMORY MCCLINTOCK, United States Vice-Consul.

GEORGE J. ABBOT, Esq.,

United States Consul, Sheffield and Bradford.

The samples sent by the Messrs. Wade are in greater variety and perfection than any others received at the museum, where they can be examined by manfacturers and farmers. They include the following items: The crude “grass, as imported; fibre in its first stage of preparation; fibre dressed and bleach d. in lengths of twelve inches or more, very fine, silky, and lustrous; tufts from the dresser; noils, or short fibre, broken from the long filaments; "slivers" from tufts of dressed fibre, beautifully colored in blue, violet, &c.; worsted yarns.of fibre, silk, and wool, both pure white and a line of delicately mottled samples; grass goods, fibre and wool weft and cotton warp, of the styles known as poplins and mozambiques, of plain lavender and delicate purple and green shades, and in plaids and checks of different styles and colors. These goods are lustrous as silk, delicate in texture, and of great strength. They exhibit a triumph of an in textile fabrication which reflects distinguished credit on the patient and pers vering manufacturers who have achieved it and added to the wealth of the world by utilizing an abundant and otherwise comparatively useless product of nature. Among the specimens of textile fibre submitted to the flax commission r cently working under the auspices of this department, "were specimens of cle China grass and wool mixed, specimens of raising, specimens of dyeing Chi grass, very beautiful products." The report of the commission further describes these products: "The fibres of their material are made up of very long eel, which would be ruptured in any attempts to cottonize it, and it should be used as long line. The specimens of cloth presented, in which this fibre was c bined with wool, were very beautiful.” Dr. Geo. C. Shaeffer, of the bureau of patents, attributes the great strength of the fibre, which is found to be much greater than that of hemp, to the fact that it has fewer breaks of uninterrup? » continuity than any other. He says: "The character of the single cells is as follows: In diameter, they exceed those of fine flax, of which, however, many are required to make line of equal length. In cross section they are irregular,

cloth

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