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prospects of a plantain-fibre industry in that Colony. The figures supplied 

 are very valuable : — 



" The fibre of thousands of acres of plantains is lost annually in this 

 Colony from the want of a simple and inexpensive machine for sepa- 

 rating it. The tree must always be cut down to obtain the fruit, and 

 the stem containing the fibre is allowed to rot on the ground. Could 

 an efficient and cheap machine be invented, the fibre would be almost 

 entirely profit to the planter. The banana yields less fibre than the 

 plantain tree, and its fibre is generally tinted. 



" Various attempts have been recently made to construct machinery for 

 manufacturing the plantain fibre. Subsequently to the Exhibition at 

 Paris, in 1855, strenuous efforts were made to establish the production 

 of fibre in this Colony as an article of export, and the Messrs. Watson 

 had fibre-making machinery put up and tried on their estate, Haags- 

 bosch, but it was not found well adapted for the purpose, the stems in 

 their natural state being so much more bulky than was allowed for in 

 constructing the machines. 



" Mr. A. D. Van Der Gon Netscher, when proprietor of plantation 

 Klein Pouderoyen, on the west bank of the River Demerara, in 1855, 

 furnished the following interesting particulars relative to fibre from 

 the plantain : — The experience of 10 years on a cultivation of from 

 400 to 480 acres in plantains has shown that — 1. On every acre 

 from 700 to 800 stems are cut per annum, either for the fruit, or in 

 consequence of having been blown dowm by high winds, or from disease 

 or other reasons. 2. The planting of the suckers at distances of 

 8 feet apart has never been tried ; but I am of opinion that if so planted 

 and cut down every eight months for the stem alone, an acre would 

 give from 1,400 to 1,500 good stems every cutting, or about 4,500 in 

 two years. 3. On plantation Klein Poaderoyen, after repeated trials, 

 the plantain stem on an average has been found to give 2 J lbs. clean, 

 and Itj lbs. discoloured and broken fibre, the latter only fit for coarse 

 paper. This result, however, has been obtained by very imperfect 

 machinery. 4. The average weight of the plantain stem is b0 lbs. 

 5. The stems can be transported from the field to the buildings for 

 one dollar per hundred." 



Owing to the increasing cultivation of bananas in the West 

 Indies, and the fact that when once the stems have borne fruit 

 they are cut down and allowed simply to rot on the ground, 

 some plan might be devised for turning the fibre to account. There 

 are at least 50,000,000 banana stems cut down every year in the West 

 Indies, and at present little or no use is made of the fibre. It is 

 evidently not sufficiently good to compete with first-class rope fibres, 

 but it might possibly be used for making coarse paper, as a packing 

 material, or in the manufacture of papier mache. Its chief competitors 

 in some of these directions would be Esparto, and the wood pulp 

 prepared on so large a scale from poplar and other trees in Norway 

 and Sweden. This wood pulp is delivered in this country at a cost 

 not exceeding 21. 10s. to 3/. 10s. per ton, and it is now very largely 

 used by paper-makers. 



Banana fibres from Musa sapient um are shown in the Kew Museum 

 from the Andaman Islands, Jamaica, Mauritius, Ceylon, British Guiana, 

 Madras, Australia. The Jamaica samples cleaned by the late Nathaniel 

 Wilson are of excellent quality. A sample from British Guiana was 

 valued in 1892 at 25/, per ton, but usually the price is much lower, and 



