number of species, forms allied to the above, that are either employed
locally, chiefly by the natives in the countries where grown, or that
would be capable of employment in the world's manufacture were they not
inferior to the standard commercial forms at present recognized, and
with which they would necessarily compete at a disadvantage. This list
is a long one, for in the single genus _Agave_, to which belong the
plant producing the Sisal hemp of commerce, there are over one hundred
species in Mexico alone, more than one half of which would produce good
fiber. In our own country it would be possible to enumerate twenty
species of plants that are recognized as American weeds, the fibers of
which could be employed as hemp, flax, or jute substitutes were these
materials unobtainable, besides half as many structural fiber plants
similar to the agave, the products of which could be employed as cordage
fiber substitutes in the same manner. Many of these uncultivated plants
have been known to the aborigines for years, possibly for centuries, as
we find their fiber, produced in varied forms of rude manufacture, in
ancient tombs or other burial places.
[Illustration: PULLING FLAX IN MINNESOTA.]
After exhausting the list of plants that may be termed commercial
fiber substitutes, in different countries where they grow, there still
remains a much larger list of species that are chiefly interesting in a
scientific enumeration of those plants which produce in their stalks,
leaves, or seed vessels what may be termed fibrous substance. My own
catalogue of the fibers of the world already foots up over one thousand
species of plants, and the complete catalogue for all countries might
extend the list to a thousand more.
In considering the undeveloped fibers of the United States, it will
be seen we should only recognize the actual commercial forms which we
do not produce, but which may be produced within our borders, or such
native growths as may be economically employed as their substitutes, and
which possibly might be brought into commercial importance.
The hemp industry is already established, though it should be extended
in order to recover its lost position among American rural industries.
Where in the past we produced forty thousand tons of hemp in the
United States, we now produce less than a fifth of this quantity. The
cultivation of flax in the United States before the days of the present
factory system was so widespread that it was of national importance.
Its manufacture was largely a home industry, however, conducted by the
fireside, and, as in ancient Greece and Rome, the work was performed by
the women of the household. With the advent of the factory system came
competition; the housewife laid aside her spinning wheel, the clumsy
home-made loom fell into disuse, and the farmer grew no more flax for
fiber. Then the flaxseed industry was extended, and after the close of
the war a large demand sprang up for coarse fiber for the roughest of
uses--for bagging and upholstery, in connection with hemp--and hundreds
of little tow mills came into existence in the Middle and Western
States.
The introduction of jute opened another chapter, and the decline of this
crude attempt at a flax industry is recorded. Meanwhile some line flax
was produced, but the extension of spinning and weaving establishments
made a larger demand for this fiber, which was chiefly imported. Land
in the old flax-growing States became more valuable for other crops,
especially with the low prices brought about by foreign competition, and
gradually the flax culture in the United States became a thing of the
past.
In recent years similar causes have served to operate against the
industry in foreign flax countries where old and plodding methods are
still in vogue, with additional factors in impoverished soils and high
rental for land, and the cultural industry abroad is declining. With
the opening of new and fertile Western lands in this country, and with
the employment of the finest labor-saving agricultural implements in
the world, the conditions are again changed, and are now favorable for
American agriculture to re-establish this industry, and to make good a
declining foreign supply. Our farmers are ready for the work, but they
have not only lost their skill and cunning in producing the straw and
preparing the fiber for the spinner, but new and more economical methods
must be adopted to place the culture on a solid basis.
[Illustration: HACKLING FLAX.]
A million acres of flax are grown for seed annually, but the growth
of flax for seed and flax for fiber are two very different things;
moreover, Old World methods do not coincide with the progressive ideas
of the educated farmers of the United States, for the peasant class
does not exist in this country. A practice essentially American must be
followed in order to make the culture profitable, and to equalize the
difference in wages on the two sides of the Atlantic. This difference is
more apparent than real, for it can be readily overcome by intelligently
directed effort, by difference in soil fertility and rentals, and
especially by the use of certain forms of labor-saving machines that
already have been devised and are being rapidly improved. The "American
practice," then, means, first, an intelligent practice, with a view to
economy of effort and involving the use of machinery in the place of
plodding foreign methods; and, second, the co-operation of farm labor
and capital to the end of systematizing the work--i.e., the farmers of a
community growing the flax, and capital, represented by a central mill,
turning the straw when grown into a grade of fiber that the spinners
can afford to purchase. Here is the solution of the flax problem in a
nutshell. The scheme has already been tested in practice with favorable
results, but the farmers in any community can do little until capital is
more generally interested.
[Illustration: CALIFORNIA HEMP.]
This brings up an important point and presents another obstacle, for
great harm has been done to all new fiber industries in recent years
by the misdirected efforts of some professional promoters. In certain
instances the organized fiber companies have been mere stock-jobbing
concerns. They have had their rise and fall, men with idle money have
burned their fingers, and the particular industry has received a "black
eye."
The story of Government effort toward the establishment of the flax
industry need not be told here; there has been widespread prejudice to
overcome, with the opposition of the importers, discouragements to be
studied and explained, the unvarnished truth to be told, and practical
and authoritative information to be given to all who may seek it. The
literature of the subject has been disseminated by thousands of copies,
and new editions are being ordered.
As to the results: Superior flax has been produced in this country in
limited quantities since the work began, and through extended field
experiments flax regions have been discovered that are thought to equal
the best flax centers of Europe. The department experiments in the
Puget Sound region of Washington have demonstrated that we possess in
that State a climate and soil that bid fair to rival the celebrated
flax region of Courtrai, and from these experiments scutched flax has
been produced that is valued by manufacturers in Ireland at three
hundred and fifty dollars per ton, and hackled flax worth five hundred
dollars per ton. Much has been done, but a great deal more remains
to be accomplished in bringing together the farmer and capitalist in
the practical work of growing, _retting, scutching, and preparing for
market_ American flax fiber, for questions of culture are settled.
[Illustration: SPREADING HEMP IN KENTUCKY.]
We should restore our hemp industry to its former proportions by
producing high-grade instead of low-grade fiber. The growth of a grade
of American hemp that will sell for six to eight cents per pound,
instead of three to three and a half cents per pound, as at the present
time, means that our farmers must follow more closely the careful
practices of Europe, and especially that they must adopt water retting
in place of the present practice of dew retting, which gives a fiber
dark in color and uneven in quality. A careful consideration of the
practices of Italy and France as set forth in Fiber Report No. 11,
Department of Agriculture, will materially aid those who desire to
change their product from the cheaper dark hemps, for which there is
small demand, to the higher-priced light hemps, which will compete with
the imported commodity.
One of the most interesting problems of the day in the utilization of
the new fiber material, and one that is attracting the attention of all
civilized countries, is the industrial production of that wonderful
substance known in the Orient as China grass, in India as rhea, and
in Europe and America as ramie. The money spent by governments and by
private enterprise throughout the world, in experiments and inventions,
in the effort to establish the ramie industry, would make up the total
of a princely fortune. Obstacle after obstacle has been overcome in the
years of persistent effort, and now we stand before the last barrier,
baffled for the time, but still hopeful, and with efforts unrelaxed.
The difficulty may be stated in a few words: ramie culture will only
become a paying industry when an economically successful machine for
stripping the fiber has been placed on the market. Hundreds of thousands
of dollars have been spent in efforts to perfect a machine, but no
Government fiber expert in the world recognizes that we have such a
machine at the present time, though great progress has been made in
machine construction.
The world's interest in this fiber began in 1869, when a reward of
five thousand pounds was offered by the Government of India for the
best machine with which to decorticate the green stalks. The first
exhibition and trial of machines took place in 1872, resulting in utter
failure. The reward was again offered, and in 1879 a second official
trial was held, at which ten machines competed, though none filled the
requirements, and subsequently the offer was withdrawn. The immediate
result was to stimulate invention in many countries, and from 1869
to the present time inventors have been untiring in their efforts
to produce a successful machine. The commercial history of ramie,
therefore, does not extend further back than 1869.
The first French official trials took place in 1888, followed by the
trials of 1889, in Paris, at which the writer was present, and which
are recorded in the official reports of the Fiber Investigation series.
Another trial was held in 1891, and in the same year the first official
trials in America took place, in the State of Vera Cruz, in Mexico,
followed the next year by the official trials of American machines in
the United States, these being followed by the trials of 1894. Since
that year further progress in machine construction has been made, and a
third official trial should be held in the near future.
[Illustration: GROWTH OF JUTE IN LOUISIANA.]
The first records of Chinese shipments of this fiber to European markets
show that in 1872 two hundred or three hundred tons of the fiber were
sent to London, valued at eighty pounds per ton, or about four hundred
dollars. India also sent small shipments, but there was a light demand,
with a considerable reduction in price, the quotations being thirty
pounds to forty pounds per ton for Chinese and ten pounds to thirty
pounds for the Indian product.
Those who are unacquainted with the properties and uses of this
wonderful textile may peruse with interest the following paragraph from
Fiber Report 7, on the Cultivation of Ramie, issued by the Department of
Agriculture:
"The fiber of ramie is strong and durable, is of all fibers least
affected by moisture, and from these characteristics must take first
rank in value as a textile substance. It has three times the strength
of Russian hemp, while its filaments can be separated almost to the
fineness of silk. In manufacture it has been spun on various forms of
textile machinery, also used in connection with cotton, wool, and silk,
and can be employed as a substitute in certain forms of manufacture for
all these textiles and for flax also, where elasticity is not essential.
It likewise produces superior paper, the fineness and close texture of
its pulp making it a most valuable bank-note paper. In England, France,
Germany, Austria, and in our own country to an experimental extent, the
fiber has also been woven into a great variety of fabrics, covering
the widest range of uses, such as lace, lace curtains, handkerchiefs,
cloth, or white goods resembling fine linen, dress goods, napkins, table
damask, table covers, bedspreads, drapery for curtains or lambrequins,
plush, and even carpets and fabrics suitable for clothing. The fiber
can be dyed in all desirable shades or colors, some examples having the
luster and brilliancy of silk. In China and Japan the fiber is extracted
by hand labor; it is not only manufactured into cordage, fish lines,
nets, and similar coarse manufactures, but woven into the finest and
most beautiful of fabrics."
China is at present the source of supply of the raw product, and the
world's demand is only about ten thousand tons, nine tenths of this
quantity being absorbed in Oriental countries. The ramie situation in
the United States at the present time may be briefly summarized as
follows:
The plant can be grown successfully in California and in the Gulf
States, and will produce from two to four crops per year without
replanting, giving from two hundred and fifty to eight hundred pounds
of fiber per acre, dependent upon the number of cuttings, worth perhaps
four cents per pound. The machines for preparing this fiber for market
are hardly able at the present time to clean the product of one
acre (single crop) in a day, and the fiber is quite inferior to the
commercial China grass. A new French machine produces a quality of fiber
which approaches the China grass of commerce, but its output per day
is too small to make its use profitable in this country. All obstacles
in chemical treatment of the fiber and in spinning and manufacture are
overcome, and the world is waiting for the successful device which will
economically prepare the raw material for market.
The part the United States Government is taking in the work is to
co-operate in experiments, to issue publications giving all desired
information regarding culture, the machine question, and the utilization
of the fiber. It tests new decorticators and reports to the public
upon their merits or demerits. It cautions farmers and capitalists,
for the present, to go into the industry with their eyes open, for the
professional promoter has seized upon this industry, above all others
in the fiber interest, as one in which he can more readily gull a
gullible public. Nevertheless, responsible capitalists are making every
legitimate effort to place the manufacturing industry on a solid basis
in this country, and to attain to the progress made in other countries
where manufacture has already been established, and where the Chinese
fiber is employed as the raw material.
[Illustration: A FLORIDA SISAL HEMP PLANT.]
Thus far I have only considered spinning fibers. More than one half
of the raw fibers imported in the United States are employed in the
manufacture of rope and small twine, or bagging for baling the cotton
crop. Cordage is manufactured chiefly from the Manila and Sisal hemps,
the former derived from the Philippine Islands, the latter from Yucatan.
Some jute is also used in this industry, though the fiber is more
largely employed in bagging; and some common hemp, such as is grown in
Kentucky, is also used.
We can not produce Manila hemp in the United States, and this substance
will always hold its own for marine cordage. Jute will grow to
perfection in many of the Southern States, but it is doubtful if we can
produce it at a price low enough to compete with the cheaper grades of
the imported India fiber. Rough flax and common hemp might be used in
lieu of jute, in bagging manufacture, but the question of competition
is still a factor. Sisal hemp, which has been imported to the value
of seven million dollars a year, when prices were high, will grow in
southern Florida, and the plant has been the subject of exhaustive
study and experiment. This plant was first grown in the United States
on Indian Key, Florida, about 1836, a few plants having been introduced
from Mexico by Dr. Henry Perrine, and from this early attempt at
cultivation the species has spread over southern Florida, the remains
of former small experimental tracts being found at many points, though
uncared for.
[Illustration: PINEAPPLE FIELD IN FLORIDA.]
The high prices of cordage fibers in 1890 and 1891, brought about by the
schemes of certain cordage concerns, called attention to the necessity
of producing, if possible, a portion of the supply of these hard fibers
within our own borders. In 1891, in response to requests for definite
information regarding the growth of the Sisal hemp plant, a preliminary
survey of the Key system and Biscayne Bay region of southern Florida
was made by the Department of Agriculture, and in the following year an
experimental factory was established at Cocoanut Grove with special
machinery sent down for the work. With this equipment, and with a
fast-sailing yacht at the disposal of the special agent in charge of
the experiments, a careful study of the Sisal hemp plant, its fiber,
and the possibility of the industry was made, and the results were duly
published. About this time the Bahaman Government became interested in
the industry, and with shiploads of plants, both purchased and gathered
without cost on the uninhabited Florida Keys, the Bahamans _began the
new industry_ by setting out extensive plantations on the different
islands of the group. The high prices of 1890 having overstimulated
production in Yucatan, two or three years later there was a tremendous
fall in the market price of Sisal hemp, and Florida's interest in the
new fiber subsided, though small plantations had been attempted. In
the meantime, American invention having continued its efforts in the
construction of cleaning devices, two successful machines for preparing
the raw fiber have been produced which have, in a measure, superseded
the clumsy _raspadore_ hitherto universally employed for the purpose,
and one of the obstacles to the production of the fiber in Florida is
removed. The reaction toward better prices has already begun, and the
future establishment of an American Sisal hemp industry in southern
Florida is a possibility, though there are several practical questions
yet to be settled.
Pineapple culture is already a flourishing industry in the Sisal hemp
region. A pineapple plant matures but one apple in a season, and after
the harvest of fruit the old leaves are of no further use to the plant,
and may be removed. The leaves have the same structural system as the
agaves--that is, they are composed of a cellular mass through which the
fibers extend, and when the epidermis and pulpy matter are eliminated
the residue is a soft, silklike filament, the value of which has long
been recognized. Only fifty pounds of this fiber can be obtained from a
ton of leaves, but, as the product would doubtless command double the
price of Sisal hemp, its production would be profitable. How to secure
this fiber cheaply is the problem. The Sisal hemp machines are too
rough in action for so fine a fiber, and, at the rate of ten leaves to
the pound, working up a ton of the material would mean the handling of
over twenty thousand leaves to secure perhaps three dollars' worth of
the commercial product. Were the fiber utilized in the arts, however,
and its place established, it would compete in a measure with flax as a
spinning fiber, for its filaments are divisible to the ten-thousandth of
an inch. The substance has already been utilized to a slight extent in
Eastern countries (being hand-prepared) in the manufacture of costly,
filmy, cobweblike fabrics that will almost float in air.
Another possible fiber industry for Florida is the cultivation of
bowstring hemp, or the fiber of a species of _Sansevieria_ that grows
in rank luxuriance throughout the subtropical region of the State.
The fiber is finer and softer than Sisal hemp, though not so fine as
pineapple fiber, and would command in price a figure between the two.
The yield is about sixty pounds to the ton of leaves. Many other textile
plants might be named that have been experimented with by the Government
or through private enterprise, but the most important, in a commercial
sense, have been named.
[Illustration: A PLANT OF NEW ZEALAND FLAX.]
There is a considerable list of plants, however, which are the subject
of frequent inquiry, but which will never be utilized commercially as
long as other more useful fibers hold the market. These for the most
part produce bast fiber, and the farmer knows them as wild field growths
or weeds. They are interesting in themselves, and many of them produce
a fair quality of fiber, but to what extent they might be brought into
cultivation, or how economically the raw material might be prepared,
are questions the details of which only experiment can determine. But
the fact that at best they can only be regarded as the substitutes for
better, already established, commercial fibers has prevented serious
experiment to ascertain their place. They are continually brought to
notice, however, for again and again the thrifty farmer, as he finds
their bleached and weather-beaten filaments clinging to the dead stalks
in the fields, deludes himself in believing that he has made a discovery
which may lead to untold wealth, and a letter and the specimen are
promptly dispatched to the fiber expert for information concerning them.
In such cases all that can be done is to give full information, taking
care to let the inquirer down as easily as possible.
The limit of practical work in the direction of new textile industries
is so clearly defined that the expert need never be in doubt regarding
the economic value of any fiber plant that may be submitted to him for
an opinion, and the long catalogue of mere fibrous substances will never
demand his serious attention.