, 1890-09-27

would no longer look with Jealous eyes On tho
progress Of the younger town at the other end
of the island. But we must not forget the
old saying "frst catch your hare; and the
mole we-st1dy Mr.. Stoddart's pamphlet the
greater does the difficulty of catching the
''hGre' IN this case appear to US. In the first
place we have 10 take care on starting out,
5aa' " really are pursuing g. hare and not
sonlo worthless rat. In other words we mustt
secure tie right plant. Although Mr.. Stoddar
does net use tie SAME name, we presume
that the agave Of which he writes is the
AgGre yjgjdG of Mr.. Morris but of this there
are, according to Mr.. Stoddart, several varie-
ties, or, az he calls them classes. Only one
4" these varieties, he tells US, is worth very
much, and all his remarks apply to it. He
tells us that the suckers are sufficiently nu-
merous to supply new fields and to have
many over, which have to be destroyed. At
first sight it would, therefore, appear easy to
get a supply of the right plants, provided we
could find q reliable agent in Yucatan but
We have read somewhere that fear of compe-
tltlon has since prevented the Yucatan peo-
pie sending their plants out of the country.
Mr.. Gtoddart introduced, however, some
plants into Jamaica, and as he has doubtless
hapt his eye on them, it might be possible to
get d small supply of plants from him. At
any rate the very first care would be to se-
cure the right plant, otherwise we might be
growing a plant handsome to the eye, but
showing its worthlessness when put into
the mill by coming cut mostly as pulp in
stead of fibre. But the difficulty of getting
the right plant is, we fear, by no means the
chief one. Let US note Mr.. S~toddart's en-
phasised warning about the quality of the
land into which the plants must be
put. 1t must be poor land. Recently
abandoned sugar estates, he tells us, are too
good. The poorer the soil the better the
less nourlshment in the soil the more fibre
will the struggling leaf develop. Now it may
be that in the Bahamas, which are little
more than uphaaved coral and sand banks,
there are great stretches Of shallow soil on
rocky base which would just suit, but we
much doubt whether in Santa Cruz we have
any great extent OF land which is poor enough.
The East End estates, it is true, look dreary
enough, especially in dry weather; but there
arepeople living who can remember when those
estates produced fine crops Of sugar. Petro-'
nella, for example has been known to make
it's four hundred hogsheads. There are
doubtless patches Of very poor land here and
there, but we MUST remember that the Yucca
tan properties are large and She land EeUet,
which Mr.. S5odGart tells us is necessary for
economy IN carriage. We fear that a further
great dra w5ack is that our climate is not dry
enough. Now and again, it is true, we have
dry years, when the Sisal hemp on poor lanl
might pay, but what would be done in all the
wet or moderately wet years. The plants
c0uld~aot be allowed to stand over, for Mr..
Stoddart tells rs that they must be continu-
ally cut, in order to prevent the development
of .le Towering pole, which is the signal for
the death OF the plant. tt would then be
necessary to go on working the hemp estates
in the wet seasons, but the fibre obtained
would be too small in quantity, probably, tn
pay, Mr.. Stoddart says that in a year with
eleuen months drought the plants did better
than ever. We cannot match that, and
hope never to match it, in Santa Cruz.
Soma of our readers may think that we
have thrown a tolerable fair supply of cold
water on the Sisal hemp question. 1t may
be that it deserves something better, and our
columns are open to any one who is prepared
to take a more sanguine view of the matter.
1t would, of course, be very interesting to
seq the question settled by a practical trial,
and the trial might be made, 50 far as to
show how the plant would grow here and
what proportion of fibre it would produce,
without perhaps any great outlay.
The question of what is to be done with
thu es' ates thrown out OF sugar cultivationis
Of course, q very important oDe. Our per-
sonal opinion is, that the solution, 80 far as
the East End is concerned, is to be sought
In restorino tha e1par culLiuation tbnra "