June 1, 1900. J 
Supplemni to the " Tropical Agriculturist." 
867 
twigs of shrubs, and even the splints from the 
wood of trees, or their subdivided woody roots. 
A few examples of this class of manufactures are 
the sweet-scented grass baskets made by the 
New England Indians from the holly grass ; the 
delic.'ut Icru baskets of the Sandwich Islanders, 
the Yuce:i oil baskets, and others by the Hopi In- 
dians of Arizona, the sumac and yellow treys, and 
the spruce root baskets of northern fibres, palm 
leaf baskets, and those from bamboos, sedges and 
reeds. Among commercial forms are the Italian 
straw-plait baskets, the Buscola baskets from 
certain sedges, the osier manufactures from Italy, 
and the ash and white-oak splint baskets made in 
our own country, together with chair bottoms 
. plaited in rattan or rushes. 
A sixth form of utility is the employment of 
fibres or fibrous subsUnces as filling material for 
stuffing pillows, cushions, mattresses, furniture, 
&c., or as packing substances. The surface fibres 
for the most part compose this class, as the bast 
fibres are too valuable, while the structural fibres 
are too stiff for such purposes, exceptions being 
the shredded leaves of palms, the commercially 
prepared Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) 
known as vegetable hair, and the familiar corn 
" shucks." The pseudo-fibres embraced in group 
5 are also largely used as packing material, 
though a notable exception should be made of 
certain leaves, as well as species of fungi and 
Alaskan sea- weed, the last being twisted into 
fish lines, the fungus used for making caps, table 
mats, &c. or employed as tinder. Mycelium has 
also been employed as a substitute for fabric. 
A seventh and most important use is the manu- 
facture of paper. 
With this brief enumeration of some of the 
ways in which fibres are employed by man, the 
following economic classification, relating to the 
utility of fibre and fibrous substances is pre- 
sented : — 
A. Spinning Fibres. 
1. Fabric Fibre'?. 
a. Fibres of the first rank for spinning and 
weaving into fine and coarse textures for wearing 
apparel, domestic use, or house furnishing and 
decoratiou, and for awnings, sails &c. (The com- 
mercial forms are cotton, flax, ramie, hemp, 
pineapple, and New Zealand flax.) 
b. Fibres of the second rank, used for burlap 
or gunny, cotton bagging, woven mattings and 
floor coverings and other coarse uses. (Commer- 
cial samples are jute and coir. 
2. Netting Fibres. 
a. Lace fibres, which are" cotton, flax, ramie, 
agave, &c. 
b. Course netting fibres, for all sorts of nets 
and for hammocks. (Commercial forms : Cotton, 
flax, ramie, New Zealand flax, agave, &c.) The 
■ native netting fibres are legion, and include the 
fibres derived from tree basts, palms, &c. 
3. Cordage Fibres. 
a. Fine spun thread and yarns other than for 
weaving ; cords, lines and twines (all of the 
commercial fabric fibres sunn, Mauritius, and 
bowstring hemps. New Zealand flax, and the so- 
called commercial hard fibres, coir, manilla, and 
sisal hemps and other forms); the fish lines made 
from seaweed, 
b. Eopes and cables (chiefly common hemp» 
sisal and manilla hemps, when produced commer- 
cially. In native manufactures made from palm, 
fibre, yuccas, and many other plants). 
B. Tie Matbrl^ls (Rough Twisted). 
Very coarse materials, such as stripped palm 
leaves, the peeled bark of trees and other coarse 
growths used without preparation, and employed 
in the construction of huts, fences, as emergency 
cordage, and sometimes as cables for " rope 
bridges " with other native uses too numerous to 
mention. 
C. Natural Textures. 
1. Tree basts, with tough interlacing Fibres. 
a. Substitutes for clotli prepared by simple 
stripping and pounding. (Examples : The Tappa 
or Kupa cloth of the Pacific Islands ; the Damaju- 
hato of South American tribes.) 
b. L ice Bark-. (The best example is the bast 
from Lagetta Lintearia of Jamaica, which has 
been used for cravats, frills, ruffles, &c., and like- 
wise as thongs and whips.) 
2. The Kibbon or larger basts extracted in 
thin, smooth-surfaced, flexible strips or sheets. 
(Examples : The Cuba bast that is employed com- 
mercially as a millinery material, plain and dyed 
iu colours ; cigarette basts for wrappers. 
3. Interlacing Structural Fibre or Sheaths. 
a. Pertaining to leaves and leaf stems of 
palms, such as the fibrous sheaths fuund at the base 
of the leave stalks of the coconut, 
b. Pertaining to flower- buds. The natural 
caps or hats derived from several species of ]3alms. 
Note. — The separated filaments of these cloth 
substitutes, sheet or ribbon basts, &l. , are also 
employed, by twisting, as cordage. 
{To be concluded.) 
SELECTION AND ITS EFFECTS ON 
CULTIVATED PLANTS. 
From a paper by t!ie l.te Mon-ieur Henr/ L. da 
Vilmoriii ia the Experiment Station Record, yA. xi. 
No. 1. U.S. Department of l^rioulture 
The word selection, taken in its general sense, 
means choice- In natural history, when applied 
to plants or animals which man raises under domes- 
tication, it assumes a more restricted meaning, 
and is applied only to the choice of individuals 
considered as agents of reproduction. It is iu 
this sense alone that the word selection is used iu 
this article. 
Tiie purpose of this paper is to indicate the 
reasons for making a certain choice, the results it 
may produce, the precautions that should accom- 
pany it, the practical methods of applying it, and 
the difficulties that may be met and may defeat 
the purposes in view. 
Evidently the process is quite different from 
natural selection. The latter proceeds indepen- 
dently of man by the simple interplay of natural 
forces, while artificial sehction is an act per- 
formed by man for the purpose of satisfying hi . 
needs and tastes. Nature modifies plants in their 
interest ; man modifies them in his ; but in the one 
CISC, as in the other, there is an acquirement of 
characters and a transmission of the chafaqtera 
acquired. 
