FIBRES OF JAMAICA. 339 
paring the samples of fibre for your inspection, is, that I am anxious 
to submit to you, and through you to the agriculturists and people in 
general of this island, the desirability and advantages in an individual 
and national point of view to be derived from the adoption and exten- 
sive cultivation of fibrous plants. As I have already mentioned, the 
great scarcity, exorbitant price, and widely-spreading demand for fibre 
throughout the world, render the materials of which it is manufactured « 
of much importance, particularly in this country, where labour is scarce 
and dear, and agriculture at its lowest ebb. Many of these fibres will 
be found of superior quality, and produced in greater abundance than 
any grown in temperate regions. 
I have made a very moderate calculation of the produce of an esta- 
blished field with Plantains, which I find to be as follows :— 
An acre planted with suckers, at 10 feet apart, will contain 
435 plants, and the first year will produce as many bunches 
of fruit worth 62. . . . . C0. Ww o BIO-T7-—-8 
Each stem will yield llb of icta fibre, Sorti 672. . 1017 6 
Amomnünginallio . .— . . « «5. ME 15 0 
There ean also be raised on the same land, along with the plantains . 
during the first year, a crop of yams, corn, kidney-beans, and sweet 
potatoes, worth at least £20, thus realizing the first year £41. 15s. 
The second year each plantain-stool will throw up three or more 
suckers, the quantity of fibre will thereby be tripled, and succeeding 
years would add to the produce; and if the plantain is cut before the 
fruit is formed, the quantity of fibre will be fully one-third more, of a 
far superior quality. I may here remark that the Banana is a much 
hardier plant than the Plantain; it will live and thrive at an elevation 
where the latter would not exist. In selecting any particular variety _ 
of the Musa for cultivation, great care ought to be observed, as on this - 
point much of the success depends. i 
In connection with this branch of industry, other plants, although | 
of less importance, ought not to be lost sight of, being available in 
meeting a great deficiency as materials for the manufacture of paper, 
such as many of our very soft and spongy woods, which cannot - 
be classed among timbers; the various and inexhaustible supply of 
tough withes, reeds, grasses ; and, perhaps superior to all, the refuse of 
arrowroot, as it comes from the mill, divested of its starch; many tons 
