51 



for individual effort is fast passing away. Collective effort is the 

 new order. 



In concentration of capital and labor and management, and in 

 commercial botany, entomology, chemistry and cultivation of the 

 soil the planters of these Islands have set an example for the 

 world. What the planters' experiment station is to the indi- 

 vidual planter, the model farm will be to the small farmer. All 

 classes of men are interested, whether they know it or not. 

 Greater production and better products mean as much to the busi- 

 ness man and the professional man as to the farmer. It is simply 

 a matter of all men knowing this on the one hand, and that the 

 agricultural colleges are the source from which must come the 

 science of agriculture on the other hand ; and then all men will 

 demand more agricultural colleges, better equipment for them, and 

 fuller service from them. 



This all men are learning with an intensity of purpose that no 

 thoughtful man can misunderstand or fail to appreciate. 



SISAL AND ITS PRODUCTS. 



Mr. Wm. Weinrich, Jr., then delivered a most interesting lec- 

 ture on sisal and other commercial fibres, showing samples of the 

 products from various parts of the world. Mr. Weinrich began 

 his address with a short sketch of the history of sisal. The plant 

 was introduced from Yucatan, where it first came into use, to 

 Florida in 1836, and from Florida was brought to the Hawaiian 

 Islands in 1893. A peculiar difference, as shown by the speaker's 

 samples of the plant, was that the sisal from Yucatan was spiney 

 along the edges, and of smaller leaf than the Hawaiian. This 

 gave the island product the double advantage that it was easier to 

 handle, so that laborers could W'Ork in it wdth less trouble, and 

 it had also a longer fibre, which increased its commercial value. 

 On the other hand, the life of the Hawaiian plant was only from 

 eight to ten years, while the Yucatan lives from sixteen to twenty. 



Mr. Weinrich said that he was now engaged, with the great 

 Burbank, in an effort to produce a longer-lived sisal with the 

 advantages of the Hawaiian product as to lack of spines and the 

 longer leaf. He said it was remarkable, in this connection, that 

 all the young plants had the spines on the edges, but that in Ha- 

 waii these disappeared as they grew older. 



Continuing his address, Mr. Weinrich corrected a popular error 



