CH. X] FIBRE- YIELDING PLANTS 115 



Sisal Hemp. The cultivation of this plant (Agave rigida, 

 var. sisalana) is an industry of some importance in the Bahamas, 

 and is of late coming into a certain prominence as a catch crop 

 or minor industry in northern India. It is cultivated on poor 

 soil, in dry places. The large fleshy leaves are cut after the 

 third year, retted in water, and the fibre beaten out. 



Mauritius Hemp. This plant, Furcrea gigantea, is used 

 in Mauritius and elsewhere, like sisal hemp, and others of these 

 Agave-like plants are also used at times, while there are in- 

 numerable " native " industries in fibres which never reach the 

 market. 



Palm Fibres. The most important, coir, the fibre of the 

 nut of the coconut palm, has already been mentioned, but there 

 are many palms which furnish valuable fibres from the bases of 

 the leaves, e.g. Raffia (Raphia sp.), Piassaba (Leopoldinia sp. 

 etc.), Palmyra (Borassus flabellifer), Kitul ( Caryota, urens), etc. 

 These fibres are usually coarse, hard, and thick, and are largely 

 used for brushes, etc. 



There are many excellent fibres in many plants of the 

 tropics, and people often ask Why is not this or that fibre in 

 use ? Why do you (i.e. agricultural departments) not introduce it ? 

 and so on. Such people forget that on the whole a new fibre is 

 the most difficult of all things to introduce upon the market. 

 The market has six or eight good fibres, cotton, jute, flax, coir, 

 hemp, Manila hemp, sunn-hemp, etc., all of which can be bought 

 at any time in large quantity, are of uniform quality, and fairly 

 cheap. One or other of these can be used for practically any 

 purpose to which a fibre can be applied, and, before a new fibre 

 can be established, it has to show that it is at least as good and 

 as cheap as (preferably better and cheaper than) one of the old 

 ones, and that it can at once be got in sufficiently large supplies 

 to be used instead of that old one. It is this last condition 

 that makes the establishment of new fibres so particularly hard. 

 Ramie, rhea, or China grass-cloth fibre is at present a case in 

 point. On the whole, perhaps this is the finest of all fibres, 



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