CULTIVATION OF SISAL IN THE BAHAMAS 223 



a circular to some of the American consuls, requesting them to collect 

 and preserve seeds and specimens of such plants in their districts as 

 were " useful as food for man or the domestic animals, or for purposes 

 connected with the manufactures or any of the useful arts." The 

 American consul at Campeche, Dr. Henry Perrine, responded to this 

 call with energy and enthusiasm, and soon introduced into Congress 

 " a bill to encourage the introduction and promote the cultivation of 

 tropical plants in Florida, and conveying to Dr. Perrine and his asso- 

 ciates a township of land, on condition that every section should be 

 forfeited if at least one-fourth thereof should not be occupied and 

 successfully cultivated in tropical or other plants within five years." 

 These hard conditions were accepted by Dr. Perrine, and in one of his 

 letters to Congress he calls attention to the sisal plant, and says, 

 "He repeats his unbroken conviction that its introduction will make 

 an era of as great importance to the agricultural prosperity of our con- 

 federation as the invention of the cotton-gin." 



For nearly ten years he labored, sending to Florida plants and seeds, 

 and endeavoring to obtain his township of land, desiring ''no more 

 honor than the power of passing the brief term of his painful existence 

 amid the privations and exposure incident to a chief pioneer in the 

 planting and population of tropical Florida." He finally succeeded 

 in establishing a sisal plantation on Indian Key. Unfortunately, 

 Dr. Perrine was not permitted to see the result of his labors, for, during 

 the Seminole War, the Indians set fire to his buildings, and he himself 

 fell a victim to their merciless attack. With the death of Dr. Perrine 

 ended the cultivation of the plants he had introduced ; but one of them, 

 that he named Agave sisalana, remained, became naturalized, and is 

 now flourishing on some of the Florida Keys, where the young plants 

 are now being gathered and carried to the Bahamas. 



Thus we see that the plants are growing within our borders, and it 

 is only necessary to determine the quality of their fiber; for, although 

 the plants are the same species as those now cultivated in Yucatan and 

 the Bahamas, the quality of the fiber may not be as good, and yet on 

 the other hand it may be better. For instance, it is said that the Ba- 

 hama fiber is superior to that produced in Yucatan ; so why may not 

 the "Florida fiber" of the future surpass that of the Bahamas? In 

 order to determine its value it is only necessary to prepare it by hand 

 from the plants now growing in Florida and compare it with the article 



