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THE MEXICAN FIBER AGAVES KNOWN AS ZAPUPE*. '^^^^' '" 



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By William Trelease. «Ja«i>' 



DuriDg the last four years frequent mention has been * 

 made of an important addition to the agriculture of Mex- 

 ico through the extensive cultivation of a new type of 

 fiber plant, ''zapupe," in the coast or piedmont region 

 between Vera Cruz and Victoria. Much of the publicity 

 given the new venture has resulted from the intelligent 

 interest taken in it by Mr. A. J. Lespinasse, late Consul 

 for the United States at Tuxpam in the State of Vera 

 Cruz, who in December last predicted a yield of three or 

 four million pounds of fiber for this year from existing 

 plantations. 



It has been recognized that the name zapupe applies 

 to several more or less different forms of Agave bearing 

 a resemblance to one another and to the ''sisal" or "hen- 

 equen" plants of Yucatan and the "mezcal" plants culti- 

 vated in the vicinity of Tequila, in western Mexico ; and 

 enough habit photographs have been reproduced in pub- 

 lications to indicate the accuracy of this general conclu- 

 sion. The only botanists who are known to have examined 

 the new fiber plantations, however, are Dr. R. Endlich, 

 who in 1905 visited the plantations about Tuxpam, and 

 the following year collected the ''ixtle" of the Mirador 

 hacienda and its wild representative; Dr. C. A. Purpus, 

 who in 1906 visited the Mirador hacienda ; and Mr. L. H. 

 Dewey, of our national Department of Agriculture, who 

 studied the zapupes of the plantations about Tuxpam and 

 Victoria early in 1907. 



Although the fiber of some of these plants has been used 

 and the plants have been cultivated in a way by the In- 

 dians, for a very long time, extensive plantations seem to 

 date from about 1901. There is no evidence that a ten- 



;Z) * Presented before The Academy of Science of St. Louis, May 3, 1909. 

 "^ (29) 



