January i, 1892.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
507 
SISAL HKMP IN THE BAHAMAS. 
Euo.\k Mavhew Bacon. 
On Inagua Island, the most southern of the 
Bahamas group, there is a stone building known as 
the salt house, under the ample roof of which fre- 
quently sounds the clatter of a vigorous donkey en- 
gine. Entering the building, the first sight to 
meet the eyes is a heap of sharp pointed, deep green 
loaves, which a negro is feeding, one by one, into 
a rapidly revolving machine. At his right lies a 
pile of long, powerful fibre, sucli as is used in rope 
making. Near by is a cart into which a boy is 
tlirowiug the vegetable waste or pulp which he ga- 
thers from beneath the machine. This bagasse, as 
it is called, is wet with sap, and so strongly acid 
as to kill other vegetable growth with which it may 
be brought in contact. Tho fibre is the product, 
the bagasse the refuse (as yet unused) of the sisal 
leaves. There are about four feet and a half in 
length, averaging longer than do tho leaves of the 
same plant grown in Yucatan. At tho base, where 
they have been cut, they are thicker than a man's 
hand and from three and a half to five inches in 
lireadth, running from this to a point so fine and 
hard that it can be used as a stiletto. The edges 
are armed with slight spiny serrations. An attendant 
with knife and maul removes the sharp points, 
crushes tho thick ends, and divides each leaf longi- 
tudinally. Each strip is fed, by tho negro in charge, 
into the mouth of his machine, through which it 
is carried half its length by tho rapidly-revolving 
cylinder. It is then drawn out, which scrapes tho 
bagasse from it. Reversing the strip, the operation 
is repeated and tho result, a long, white “ switch ” 
of fibre, is added to the pile already noticed. The 
fibre is now washed in salt water (which gives better 
results than if fresh water is used), after which tho 
hanks are h_mig in a drying house or better still, 
in the sun till perfectly dry, when the material is 
ready for baling and shipment. An old turtle tank 
or ‘‘crawl,” cut out of the soft calcareous rock, with 
a small hole in the wall, which divides it from the 
ocean, so that the tide can flow in and out, makes 
an excellent basin for rinsing the fibre. 
Sisal closely resembles the nianilia hemp of tho 
Spice and Bhilippino Islands, when prepared for 
market, and is not unlike it when growing. In 
Yucatan they are generally known as Ilennequin. 
They possess in varying degrees the strength, length, 
and luster of fibro upon which the market value de- 
ponds. Tho Sacqui, botanically knowni as .l</flrr 
Art/j, introduced some years ago into Florida under 
the name of Affaee and often called Maguey, 
has received the greatest attention from Mexican 
(Yucatan) cultivators. The plant which is being 
cultivated in the Bahamas was at first called “Pita," 
and, although greatly resembling tho Sacqui, is con- 
sidered a superior kind. A number of morn or less 
worthless pilaiits, having apparently the same goncral 
characteristics, aro to bo found throughout the West 
Indian Islands. A gentleman in Jamaica, with five 
huudrod acres prepared for lioiiip planting, recently 
showed 1110 tho plants which ho proposed to use, 
and which ho imagined to bo good Sisal. They 
wore the valnoless Kcratto, the leaves of which 
niight deceive any but an expert, but which upon 
being cleaned produce a fibre so weak that its 
cultivation would be utter folly. 
A full-grown Sisal plant has sixty to eighty gi’eat 
loaves, growing around a common centre, which in- 
cliue from a group of upright, undeveloped ones in 
the middle of tho cluster to an outer circle that is 
nearly horizontal. Many leaves measure over six 
feet in length, but the average length of tho “ripe" 
ones, ns already stated, is four and a half foot. The 
average number of loaves which may be procured 
from each plant annually is over forty, being in ex- 
cess of the Yucatan production. The separation of the 
the loaf from tho plant is made with n knife neat 
tuo base, and ripe leaves may be cut from two-and- 
a-lialf-ycars-old plants, although tho length of time 
required for maturity differs in different localities, 
vne cvutiug d^es jiqt exhaust the plaut. H way bo 
stripped annually, or even more frequently, for twenty 
years, and when it shows sign of age may be re- 
placed by a sucker, of which the careful Sisal culti- 
vator will be sure to have a nursery full for such 
eniergoncioa. The propagation of the Sisal is either 
by seeds or suckers. The latter spring up around 
the mature plants constantly, and should be carefully 
removed because they sap the life of the parent 
and also for the reason that they are most valuable 
for replanting. When plants remain uncut for too 
long a time, a huge flower stalk shoots up from the 
centre to tho height of eighteen feet. After having 
flowered and matured its seeds, the plant invari- 
ably dies. 
Experienced growers use six hundred and fifty 
S lants to the acre, in rows eleven feet by six feet 
istant from each other. This will give room for 
tho laborers to walk between tho rows without being 
wounded by the terrible spurs which, like a cluster 
of keen spears, make each plant a menace to the 
unwary. Besides this, the closer planting would re- 
sult in the i>iercing of innumerable leaves every 
time the wind blow, and the consequent destruction 
of much fibre. Stabs and bruises mean discoloration, 
and the expense of sorting damaged lots apart 
from the proiiortional loss would be an added and 
not insignificant item in the labour account of a 
plantation. Many people who have caught tho 
“Sisal fever" aro planting acre after acre, expect- 
ing nothing loss than that the farms, when planted, 
will take care of thomaolves. To bo successful in 
this enterprise requires unceasing activity and care. 
One must bo Argus eyed. One season of poor 
prices, with the consequent discouragement which 
18 apt to follow in the case of nine small proprietors 
out of ton, in^ a country where the peasantry are 
all ncgi'oes will result in an overgrowth of suckers 
and the poling of mature plants till nothing short 
of absolute clearing and starting anew will save the 
farms. There is no cultivation where system and 
erseverance are more necessary to success. The 
ropping of the seed from a single “ pole," if not 
watched and attended to immediately, will produce 
little spears enough to destroy a hundred plants, 
and I have frequently seen a dozen suckers start 
up around and under the leaves of their parent. 
After such crowding, the leaves would be worthless, 
even could they be reached ; but no man, unless 
arrayed in metal armor strong and stout enough to 
withstand the thrust of steel, would be so foolhardy 
as to attempt to penetrate such a growth. What 1 
want to impress is the fact that without tliat patient 
and systematic care, which I have no whore observed 
as characteristic of the unled negro, a field of Sisal 
is as valueless as a field of mullein. 
The hardiness of the Sisal is something wonderful. 
It grows beat on lands which seem good for nothing 
else. Rock land, whore tho hardy sage, the sword 
plant, or cactus crowd the stunted, gnarled hard- 
wood trees ; where the fissures in the snu-hardonod 
limestone are filled with a dry, sandy soil, and 
hardly a barrelful of that to tho acre, will produce 
Sisal. If hard pushed, it will grow in tlie air, 
without soil, I have twelve living plants which 1 
kept shut up for eighteen months in a cigar box 
without light, air or water. But such growth as 
will result in a marketable commodity is a different 
niatter. That requires a soil not too rich, which 
induces fatness and loss of fibre, nor too poor, or 
the plant grows dwarfed. Tho ground must not bo 
too wot or too dry. 
When tho right spot has been found; when tho 
selection of seeds or suckers, the preliminary pre- 
paration, has been accomplished; then, the choice 
of season hastens or retards tho work of preparing 
the ground for the reception of the plants. Of course 
there is no winter ; no frost or cold to contend with ; 
no blizzard to calculate for. But there are rainy 
and dry seasons. One must calculate so that the 
necessary burning of cut brush and trees will not 
occur when the tires are liable to bo extinguished 
by the violent down pour of the “ winter ” rains 
nor tho planting delayed until the dry months in-’ 
t«ri’«i'9 wuh ftdvwise of tho yguog plsuits. 
