348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1945 



THE WAR PERIOD 



The status of the Panama abaca project was immediately and com- 

 pletely changed by the happenings at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 

 1941. The supplies of abaca available in the United States at that 

 time were entirely inadequate to meet the probable requirements for 

 this fiber, and the prospective occupation of the Philippine Islands by 

 the Japanese meant that our main source of supply of abaca would be 

 cut off for an indefinite period. Under these circumstances the need 

 for developing the production of this fiber in Tropical America could 

 not longer be questioned. 



Two days after Pearl Harbor the Interbureau Coordinating Com- 

 mittee on Special Fiber Crops, of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, met in conference for consideraiton of different aspects 

 of the Panama abaca situation. One of the members of this com- 

 mittee was authorized to discuss this matter informally with repre- 

 sentatives of the Office of Production Management, the Cordage Insti- 

 tute, and the United Fruit Co. for the purpose of determining what 

 action might be taken. In December 12 a conference was held by 

 representatives of the Eeconstruction Finance Corporation, the De- 

 fense Supplies Corporation, the Department of Agriculture, the 

 United Fruit Co., and the Cordage Institute. It was proposed at 

 this conference that the United Fruit Co. should immediately pur- 

 chase a Corona fiber-cleaning machine that was available in Costa 

 Rica and move this machine to the plantation at Almirante, that plans 

 should be prepared for the planting by the United Fruit Co. of ap- 

 proximately 10,000 acres of abaca in Panama and 10,000 acres in Costa 

 Rica, and that with the approval of the Office of Production Manage- 

 ment this project should be financed by the Reconstruction Finance 

 Corporation. The necessary contracts covering this work were sub- 

 sequently prepared, but without waiting for the approval of these 

 contracts, instructions were cabled to Almirante, the machine was pur- 

 chased and moved, and planting operations were started. 



The casual observer who may have occasion to watch the discharge 

 of a cargo of Central American abaca on a dock in New York, probably 

 has but little conception of the difficulties that had to be overcome 

 before this fiber could be produced. The conditions under which the 

 abaca, plantations were established in Central America have been well 

 described in an article published in Cord Age magazine, September 

 1944, from which the following is quoted : 



When the plantations were started shortly after Pearl Harbor, there was lack 

 of knowledge in the cultivation and processing of the fiber. The only abaca 

 grown in this hemisphere was that produced by the experimental plantation 

 operated by the United Fruit Co. in Panama, with root stock provided by a far- 

 sighted member of the United States Department of Agriculture, who had brought 

 the stock from the Philippines. 



