170° 
- L.—SISAL HEMP IN THE BAHAMAS. 
[K. B., 1892, pp. 141-143. ] 
The following interesting account of the fibre industry in the 
Bahamas has been recently communicated to Kew by his Excellency 
Sir Ambrose Shea, K.C.M.G., Governor of the Bahamas :— 
Sir AMBROSE SHEA, K.C.M.G., to ROYAL GARDENS, KEw. 
Government House, Bahamas, 
DEAR SIR il 11, 1892. 
I HAVE asked the Crown Agents to order in the meantime § 
copies of the Kew Bulletin for this Government, and I have notified 
parties wishing to become subscribers that I will have their orders 
forwarded, 
I notice you give a good deal of attention to our fibre cultivation. 
It is really a most promising pii a ise and I believe will financially 
realise all reasonable expectatio 
It will not become what is anita a boom, for the production is 
necessarily a gradual movement, but as far as the future of the industry 
can be inferred from experience and existing facts, the calculations of 
its progress and value may be made with an unusual degree of certainty, 
so stable are its general conditions. 
e growth of the plant is unfailing, it wien: proof against drought 
and every known adverse influence. It matures fully in four ig and 
then yields 10 or 12 annual crops without further cultivation. The 
recent experim 
fi 
it takes a dye readily, and eminent fibre merchants in London have 
informed me that they only desire to be assured that they can depend 
on a supply. 
Such a state of facts is full of promise for the future eet omeed of the 
colony. The ee a is now beginning, T e whole for the year will 
be from 150 to 200 tons. There will be an increasing pioa in the 
succeeding years, and a careful estimate places the output at 14,000 tons 
n 1900. At the low price of 207. a ton this would give an export of 
280, 0007. which, added to the fatal export of the colony (130, ase o 
makes 410,0007. eight years hence (to which the intervening years 
be a steady approach), and we thus have in view apro oduction more en 
three times of any in the experience of the colony. 
ut there is no reason why it should rest here, and it can be predicted 
with as much safety as can belong to any forecasts into the future 
in ten years of the new century the industry will big reached a 
result of 50,000 tors, the value of which can be readily se 
In these estimates I have taken due account of the competition ahh 
this colony has stimulated by its enterprise, and the price I have named 
will satisfy dealers in the article that I am under = influence of all 
necessary restraint in this respect. I donotthink many of our imitators 
will be successful, for it Ay songs special combined conditions of soil and 
climate to > produce such a fibre as ours, and in a spirit of self te i 
the Legislature has extended pe tee years ra Act now three years 
existence, wick prohibits the export of fibre plants from the serie 
This must aff e TR re which has been spoken of, for some of 
the places in question had been relying on supplies of plants from our 
growers when the first prohibitory a should have expired. 
e cultivation in Florida has been proposed, but this is not seriously 
The- isi ior, wages much more than double 
whit is paid here, and there i is a well-known liability to frost, which is 
