OF THE VEGETABLE FIBRES OF JAMAICA. 



343 



"There can also be raised on the same land, along with the 

 plantains during the first year, a crop of yams, corn, kidney- 

 beans, and sweet potatoes, worth at least £20, thus realizing 

 the first year £41 15s. The second year each plantain- 

 stool will throw up three or more suckers, the quantity of 

 fibre will thereby be tripled, and succeeding years would add 

 to the produce ; and if the plantain is cut before the fruit is 

 formed, the quantity of fibre will be fully one-third more, of 

 a far superior quality. I may here remark, that the banana 

 is a much hardier plant than the plantain ; it will live and 

 thrive at an elevation where the lattei would not exist. In 

 selecting any particular variety of the musa for cultivation, 

 great care ought to be observed, as on this point much of the 

 success depends. 



(i In connection with this branch of industry, other plants, 

 although of less importance, ought not to be lost sight of, 

 being available in meeting a great deficiency, as materials for 

 the manufacture of paper, such as many of our very soft and 

 spongy woods, which cannot be classed among timbers ; the 

 various and inexhaustible supply of tough withes, reeds, 

 grasses; and, perhaps superior to all, the refuse of arrow- 

 root, as it comes from the mill, divested of its starch ; many 

 tons of this are annually wasted, being thrown on the 

 dunghill. The above-mentioned materials are far more likely 

 to answer the purpose than the bamboo, so much used in 

 China for making paper. 



' ' I shall conclude by briefly describing another plant (the 

 pathos violacea), admirably adapted for all descriptions of 

 fine straw-plats, particularly where strength and richness of 

 appearance are desired ; its plat will be found superior to the 

 best Leghorn plat. This plant although an epiphyte, and 

 growing plentifully at the roots and on the tops of the 

 highest trees, at an elevation on the mountains not under 

 1,000 feet, may readily be cultivated in woodlands and moist 



