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partics 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 — ise and I believe will financially 
realise all, reasonable expectatio 
It will not become what is alle a boom, for the production is 
necessarily a gradual movement, but as far as the future of the industry 
can be inferred from experience ve existing facts, the calculations of 
its progress and value may be made with an unusual degree of certainty, 
so stable are its general vdaditiótis 
The growth of the plant is unfailing, it being proof against drought 
nd every known adverse influence. Tt matures fully in four years and 
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 prosperity of the 
colony. The export is now beginning, and the whole for the year will 
be from 150 to 200 tons. This will be an increasing quantity in the 
sueceeding years, and a careful estimate places the output at 14,000 tons 
in 1900. At the low price of 207. a ton this would give an export of 
280,0007., which, added to the normal export of the colony (130, C00/.), 
es 410, pau eight years hence (to which the intervening years will 
be a een roach), and we thus have in view a production more than 
three times H any in the experience of the colony. 
But there is no reason why it should rest here, and it can be predicted 
climate to produce such a fibre as ours, and in a spirit of self defence, 
the legislature has extended for five years an Act now three years in 
the places in question had been relying on supplies of plants from our 
a ho when the first prohibitory law should have expired. 
cultivation in Florida has been proposed, but this is ae seriously 
ended by us. e plant is inferior, wages much more than double 
what is paid here, and "hers d is a well-known liability to bes which is 
fatal to tibre Lig As far as the best informed judgment can at 
present be a guide, we have no grounds for apprehension that our 
limits of pr ofiable atventin ure. The Government have mcer for ten 
years the amount of Crown allotments to 100,000 acres, which embraces 
the ich deri Troie t of on tons I have referred to. These allot- 
the tabo? market is also uarded against. One o the e many attractions 
of this remarkable industry is in the fact that strikes are all but im- 
oe for per will have no plausible basis. The crop may remain 
