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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Although, the plants were neglected, they throve and increased 

 to such an extent that finally the people looked upon them as 

 troublesome weeds, and as such they were often destroyed. 

 Their usefulness, however, was evidently appreciated "by a few ; 

 for, as Sir Ambrose Shea, the present Governor of the Bahamas, 



A Branch of the "Pole" of the Sisal Plant. 



told the writer, he was one day passing the house of a native, 

 when a piece of rope attracted his attention. On inquiring where 

 he obtained it, the negro replied that " it growed in de yard/' and 

 showed the governor the plant, and explained the way in which 

 the rope had been made. Now, Sir Ambrose happened to be a 

 native of Newfoundland, and hence knew a good rope when he 

 saw it ; so inquiries were at once made, and the value of the plants 

 was learned. 



The people, however, were slow to realize the importance of 

 the subject, but the governor evinced great energy and enthusi- 

 asm in keeping it before them, and when some of the fiber ob- 

 tained from old plants sold in London at the rate of fifty pounds 

 per ton, and was declared to be superior to that produced in 

 Yucatan, sisal in the Bahamas had somewhat of a " boom," and 

 people carefully guarded the very plants that formerly they 

 would have destroyed as weeds. Everybody became enthusiastic, 

 and sisal plantations were everywhere started, not only by the 



