500 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 



The name " grass " is also given to a number of fibers which cannot 

 be classed with the Graminece. " Monkey " or " Para grass " is the fiber 

 of a palm, Attalea funifera, and " Bear-grass" is a name given not only 

 to two species of Yucca, but to Dasylirion graminifoUum, widely dis- 

 tinct plants. Even "China grass" is a misnomer. "Pita" is the fiber 

 of Agave Americana^ and the name has also been applied to Bromelia 

 sylvestris. In the same catagory Agave Sisalana produces " Henequen" 

 fiber, and this name is also given to Yucca fiber in some of the European 

 markets, doubtless from having been exported with the true Henequen. 

 So the name " Tucum " the fiber of Astrocaryum tucuma, in Brazil, is also 

 given to Bactris seiosa, and the synonyms are " Tucum, Tecum, Ticum" 

 and " Tucuma," variously applied to several plants. 



When we come to native names the case is almost a hopeless one, 

 jute having sixty-four different appellations, from "Pat" to " Bow mooch- 

 kee koshta," in India alone. Then there is much confusion in regard to the 

 spelling of names by different authors, in some cases their orthography 

 being so varied as to make totally different names, and their similarity can 

 only be traced by pronouncing them aloud without looking at the letters. 

 {Jeetee and CMfee are examples.) A very few of the commonest of these 

 native names, however, have been given to make the bst of more value 

 in naming species, as frequently the writer has had but an obscure 

 native name by which to identify the fiber and learn its history, and 

 more than once, after fruitless endeavors, has stumbled upon the name 

 in connection with a better known one, after which it was an easy 

 matter to verify the names and establish the species. 



It is impossible to give the habitat of some of the fiber-producing 

 I)lants of our list, the native homes of well-known species often being 

 the hardest to determine, as, by cultivation from remote ages, they have 

 become denizens of the whole world, and, escaping from cultivation, 

 are found side by side with truly native species, holding their places 

 with them in the struggle for existence. The cotton plant and the cocoa 

 palm are familiar examples. Much study has been given to the subject, 

 much has been conjectured, and much written, but in the end, while we 

 are willing to accept the statements, we lack the proof. Plants are in- 

 troduced from one country to another in various ways. The cocoa palm 

 is thought to have been disseminated to the four quarters of the globe 

 by the waves and tides of the ocean, and other plants have likewise 

 been carried by the seas to remote lands, and there sprung up, fruited, 

 and established themselves. 



A recent German writer, in speaking of the American plantain (see 

 fiber list), which grows in such luxuriance in the tropics, and is seedless, 

 suggests that the importation took place while the polar regions enjoyed 

 a tropical climate, and was brought by emigrating Asiatics by way oi 

 Kamtchatka and Alaska. With species that have become introduced 

 in more modern times, it is easy to trace them to their native homes. 

 The study of the geographical distribution of plants is an interesting 

 one, and one, too, that has a practical bearing upon the industries of a 

 country, and especially in relation to agriculture, and whether we wish 

 to bring a new fiber plant from a remote countrj^, or a new wheat from 

 a distant State, there is but one question to be asked : " Will it grow 

 here?" 



Many of the fibers in this list are derived from plants that are found 

 growing without cultivation, and the fiber only used to a very limited 

 extent by the natives, and prepared in the rudest manner. Other plants 

 are cultivated, and the fiber extracted by uniform methods of prepara- 

 tion, and in all such cases brief data have been given commensurate 

 with the importance of the fiber. To those species which produce 



