THE INTRODUCTION OF ABACA (MANILA HEMP) 

 INTO THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE 1 



By H. T. Edwards 

 Principal Technologist, U. S. Department of Agriculture 



[With 10 plates] 



The story of plant exploration and introduction furnishes material 

 for one of the most interesting chapters in the history of world agri- 

 culture. For centuries, explorers and scientists have collected and 

 brought back to their home countries seeds and plants from foreign 

 lands. The purpose of this work has ordinarily been to obtain plant 

 material that might be utilized either for the improvement of agri- 

 cultural industries already established, or, in some instances, for the 

 establishment of entirely new industries. 



Many of the details relating to seed and plant introduction projects 

 have never been recorded, and the history of this work will never 

 be written in its entirety. The value of any one particular plant 

 introduction, or the ultimate effect which such an introduction may 

 have had in relation to the development of agriculture can never be 

 fully determined. In some instances the dollars-and-cents value of 

 a new plant or a new industry may be approximately estimated. 

 There are other cases in which the fact that a plant product has been 

 available at a time when it was urgently needed was a matter of far 

 greater importance than its monetary value. Under the emergency 

 conditions which exist during a world war there are certain "critical" 

 or "strategic" materials which must be obtained, if possible, with but 

 little consideration of their cost. Abaca fiber, which furnishes the 

 raw material for certain manufactured products required in military 

 operations, is an outstanding example of a "strategic" plant product. 



This fiber, which is known in the Philippine Islands as abaca and in 

 trade circles as Manila hemp, is used for the manufacture of so-called 



1 Editor's Note. — Readers of this paper will be interested to know that the author has 

 omitted one important detail : it was Harry T. Edwards himself who anticipated during 

 World War I future wartime interferences with abaca importations, advocated production 

 in tropical America, personally made the shipment of living plants from Davao to Panama 

 and then followed up the project until his retirement in 1945, when the results of his 

 work were apparent in the substantial quantities of abaca made available. 



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