10 
is generally Grass-hemp in the mouth of an American. 
There are two varieties of cultivated Henequen, called Yash- 
qui and Sacqui by the natives; or the Greenish Henequen 
and the Whitish Henequen in the translation of the Spaniards. 
Both these are embraced by me under the denomination of 
Agave Sisalana. Taking the Yashqui for the type, its 
generic characters are as follows : corol bell-form ; segments 
converging and longer than the tube. Filaments very long, 
awl-shaped, and inserted into the base of the segments at or 
near the top of the tube. Style not half as long as the 
stamens, and is even very little elevated above the segments 
of the corol when its three-lobed stigma receives the pollen 
from the bursting anthers. The corol, stamens, and style 
continue all permanent on the germ; and the germ itself 
becomes a cylindrical capsule, which, opening at the top in 
three divisions, even splits the dried tube of the corol. Its 
specific character is sufficiently denoted by the smoothness 
of the edges of the leaves of the Yashqui. Indeed, when 
very young, it greatly resembles our indigenous Petre, or 
Yucca gloriosa of the Southern States. The leaves will 
average three feet long, yet they are frequently five feet long, 
with a thorn at the point. I once took the exact dimensions 
of a leaf five feet long. At fifteen inches from the point it 
was four inches wide and one-eighth of an inch thick ; at 
thirty inches it was five inches wide and two-eighths of an 
inch thick ; at forty-five inches again only four inches wide, 
but three-eighths of an inch thick; and at radical end 
merely three inches wide yet four-eighths of an inch thick. 
It will grow in any arid soil or situation, and propagate 
itself without cultivation. When the young plants are placed 
at six feet apart, the mature plants, after the second or third 
year, will produce, at the very least, 1200 pounds of Sisal 
hemp per acre. If it be the Sacqui, it will produce double 
that quantity. Two or three files of the lowest leaves may 
be cut two or three times yearly from the same plant, at any 
season, for several years, and for ever from the shoots which 
supply its place. From the letter of Don Santiago Mendez, 
ice-Governor of Yucatan, sufficient data can be obtained to 
caleulate the profit of a plantation of Sisal hemp. The paper 
of the Henequen Plant Company of Yucatan calculates the 
expense and profits of 36,000 plants as follows : total expense 
at the end of three years, 4541 dollars; total produce of the 
third year, 9015 dollars; divisible gains, 4479 dollars. 
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