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 tw^o-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 cultivsition. 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 yearl}^ 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, 

 Vice-Governor of Yucatan, sufficient data can be obtained to 

 calculate 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. 



