328 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



Manila rope. It is the product of a plant that resembles in appearance 

 the common banana plant to which it is closely related, and is an 

 exceptionally strong and light material that is highly resistant to 

 the action of salt water. More than a century ago the discovery was 

 made that for making strong and durable cordage, and particularly 

 marine rope, there is no other plant fiber in the world obtainable in 

 commercial quantities that is equal in quality to abaca. The use 

 of this fiber was established in Massachusetts about 1820, and Manila 

 rope soon became standard equipment on every ship that sailed the 

 Seven Seas. At the time of the entry of the United States in World 

 War II no entirely satisfactory substitute for abaca was obtainable, 

 the entire supply of this fiber had been cut off by the Japanese occu- 

 pation of the Philippine Islands and the Netherlands Indies, and 

 the requirements of the war effort necessitated an immediate increase 

 in the production of many different types of abaca cordage. Fortu- 

 nately, the introduction of abaca into Tropical America had provided 

 in part for an emergency of this character. Many years before the 

 outbreak of the war abaca plants had been brought to Panama by the 

 United States Department of Agriculture. Preliminary experimental 

 work had been completed by an American plantation company, and 

 a large supply of planting material was available. It was possible, 

 therefore, to start immediately the large commercial plantings of 

 abaca in Central America that by 1945 had furnished more than 20 

 million pounds of this urgently needed rope fiber — a quantity of fiber 

 sufficient for the manufacture of more than 3,000 miles of 6-inch rope. 



THE PANAMA ABACA PROJECT 



During World War I persons familiar with the world fiber situa- 

 tion, and also with conditions in the Orient, had seen an element of 

 danger in having the production of the entire world supply of abaca 

 fiber confined to limited areas in islands of the western Pacific, prin- 

 cipally the Philippines. It was clearly evident that in the event of 

 a world war in which these islands might be occupied by enemy 

 forces, and the Pacific sea lanes even partially closed, the United 

 States' one source of supply of this essential raw material would be 

 entirely eliminated. This theoretical situation became an actuality 

 at the time of Pearl Harbor. Furthermore, there had been the defi- 

 nite possibility that the continued spread of diseases of the abaca 

 plant, which had already destroyed relatively large areas of abacd 

 in the Philippines, might result in the near future in a decreasing 

 production of Philippine abaca fiber. With the exception of the 

 Province of Davao, where the growing of abaca was efficiently con- 

 ducted by Japanese plantation companies, there had been for some 

 years a declining production of this fiber throughout the Philippine 

 Islands. 



