214 CULTIVATION OF SISAL IN THE BAHAMAS 



are removed, the fibro-vascular bundles remain and constitute what is 

 commercially known as "fiber." 



While all the agaves will yield fiber of some kind, it is only in 

 a few that the quantity and quality of the material are such as to make 

 its manufacture profitable. This fact has been known for a long time 

 in Yucatan, the home of the sisal industry. There the natives have 

 from time inmiemorial cultivated a number of agaves, until now it is 

 difficult for botanists to decide whether some of them are distinct 

 species or only cultivated varieties. 



One of the native species, known as Agave rigida, is a rather small 

 plant, having leaves from two to four feet long, and as many inches 

 wide. These are armed on the edges with dark brown spiny teeth, 

 and are terminated by a stout reddish brown spine. This seems to 

 be the plant called chelem by the natives of Yucatan, and is the one 

 from which the cultivated varieties are supposed to have originated. 

 These varieties, collectively known as henequen or jenequen, are sepa- ■ 

 rately distiiiguished as the "yaxci, furnishing the best quality, and the 

 sacci, with the largest quantity of fiber ; chucumci, larger than the 

 last, produces coarse fiber; and babci has finer fiber, but in smaller 

 quantity." 



Of the varieties mentioned above, only two need be considered — 

 the sacci' and the yaxci. The former, known as Agave rigida, var. 

 longifolia, is distinguished from the native plant by having much 

 longer, spiny leaves, from four to six feet in length, and slightly differ- 

 ent flowers. It is extensively cultivated in Yucatan, and, as already 

 stated, yields the most fiber. The other variety, the yaxci, botanically 

 dignified by the title Agave rigida, var. sisalana, or sometimes even 

 elevated to the rank of a species, is one of the most valuable of the 

 fiber-producing agaves. 



The leaves are of a dull green color, four to six feet long, as many 

 inches wide, and terminated by a stout, dark spine. The margins^are 

 commonly described as smooth, as they are without teeth, but in all 

 the plants examined by the writer the leaves were slightly rough on the 

 edges, and in many of the young plants some of the leaves had well- 

 developed teeth. A full-grown plant presents a rather striking appear- 

 ance, bristling all over with the long, spiny-tipped leaves, thickly radi- 

 ating from the short cylindrical trunk, which is crowned by a sharp, 

 slender, cone-like bud. Indeed, a large plant makes one think of a 



