7 
In the early days of Singapore it was manufactured by a number 
of Bugis men for some years, but the industry died out. 
Messrs. Hogan’s machine has turned out some good samples 
and it is very probable that this fibre may come again into the 
market in plenty from the Peninsula. 
The fibre being required of as great length as possible, the short 
leaves of the field pines cultivated for fruit are not of any use, 
where however, fields have been abandoned and grown up into 
grass and scrub, the pines cease to give good fruit but produce 
leaves from six to eight feet long or even more which are suitable 
for fibre extraction. Such long leaved pines are to be found all 
over the Peninsula wherever pines have been cultivated and could 
be got in large quantities in some districts. 
A fuller account of it will be found in Bulletin, 1st Series, p. 56, 
to which the reader is referred. The present value of good pine- 
apple fibre is about £34 a ton. 
Karatas plumieri , the Mexican fibre, or silk grass. This plant 
is a kind of wild pineapple occurring all through tropical America, 
ft possesses a large crown of some fifty or more dark green leayes, 
8 to 10 feet long and 1 to 2 inches wide narrowed upwards and 
armed with strong recurved thorns at the edges. The flowers are 
produced in a flat cake like mass in the centre and the head of 
fruit forms a compact mass of fusiform pulpy fruits eacli about 4 
inches long and 1 inch through. They are eatable with a flavour 
of pineapple but owing to the presence apparently of siliceous 
spicules, are apt to cut the tongue. The plant sends up suckers 
and being of rapid growth soon forms a dense impenetrable thicket. 
Karatas plumieri has long been cultivated in the Botanic Gardens, 
Singapore, but as it is hardly ornamental and takes up a great 
deal of room, it has not found its way into other gardens or planta- 
tions. It might, however, be very well used for fencing purposes 
to keep out cattle and wild pigs, as its dense mass of thorny leaves 
would stop most animals. It grows "rather irregularly however, and 
is inclined to push out in all directions. It is readily propagated 
from its side shoots and seems rather to prefer dry open soil 
DODGE, “Useful Fibre Plants of the World,” says: — “The plants 
are of the most prolific nature growing spontaneously in almost all 
soils and climate. Cultivation in its native land is therefore ex- 
tremely simple and it is surprising that the plant has not received 
more attention from planters. The Indians cultivate the plant to 
some extent in Mexico, 1,222 gardens being recorded in 1830. 
They generally selecf forest for this purpose removing the under- 
growth by cutting or burning. The roots of old plants are then 
set out 5 or 6 feet apart and at the end of a year yield leaves fit 
for cutting.” He states further that the thprnsonthe leaves (which 
give some trouble in working the fibre) are diminished in size and 
number by cultivation. “The fibre varies in quality according to 
age, in young leaves the fibre is fine and white, with increasing age 
it becomes longer and coarser." 
