, 1891-06-17

OOAAO P'OhC W tLC SLONCA OAN
All those questions are fully discussed in this
Kew report, and I have asked Mr.. Bowel,
the Superintendent of the Botanical Station
at Dodds Reformatory, to be good enough to
summarize these results and put them before
the planters in Barbados, in order that they
might be in a position to judge for themselves
whether or not they can establish this indus
try here. I know Of no place in the whole
of the West Indies where you are likely to
establish a fibre industry under more favour
able circumstances than in Barbados. (Cheers).
You have got the plant here already, and it
can be increased to an enormous extent. This
plant produces small bulbs like onions that
lie on the poll, and these are produced in
such abundance that from two towering plants
in Jamaica the other day, l got 10000 little
bulbels, which will in due time become large
plants. | need not detain you further with
regard to this all | will ask you Just now
is to look into the matter and Judge for your.
selves. Isee you are not men who are carried
away by mere sentiment or by argument in
such matters. | believe I am addressing men
who are thoroughly practical and wish the
facts to be brought before them, so that they
can Judge whether those facts will bear the
test of experiments or not. Hence all | can
do is this. I challenge any one in the room
to-day to controvert one single statement
that has been made by me with regard to
this plant. Sir Charles Lees, your late Gov
ernor. is now Governor of Mauritius, and if
you want further information than is given
in the Kew Bulletin, all that you have to do
is to ask Sir Charles Lees to give it to you.
The reason why l believe you are likely to
establish a fibre industry here is this. You
have a large population and can command
labour much cheaper than in all the other
islands. l am told that the machines cost
G30 a piece they are driven by an engine
something like about five or ten horse power,
and a special point is this: and they must
be two men to work each mqchine-one a
left hand man, and the other a right-hGnd
man. | do not know whether there are left
hand.men enough in Barbados to be able
to start this industry Qaughter)-but no doubt
there might be some. Why is it necessary
to have a left-hand as well as a ri9ht-hand
man? l will tell you. This large leaf is
full Of fibre; bat it also contains a large
amount Of pulp. In fact, may state that
out of a leaf like this, only three per cent.
is fibre; that is to say If you cart to your
factory 100 tons of leaves of this sort, you
will get three tons of fibre and 81 tons Of
pulp and watery matter. That shows you
GutG IL Is very lIupOIG va ~ " hdF0 III l1nLuCAoO
area under cultivation-in fact you want
500 or 600 acres, and you should have all
parts of the fibre estates converging to the
factory, so that these leaves might be sent
down either by means of light railways or
some other inexpensive means of approach
to the factory. But to return to the machine.
One man is to take the leaf and present it to
the machine. The machine is of the same
nature as a chaff cutter, only it does not cut
it beats the fibre only, He pushes the leaf
about half way into the machine, and as the
fibre is beaten out of the pulp, then the leaf
has to be reversed and the other end is pre-
sented to the machine, and soon, the man has
in his hand a large skein of beautiful white
fibre. Why a left hand man is necessary is
this. When the right-hand man takes out the
leaf to reverse it and present the other end
to the machine, the machine is disengaged,
and then the left.hand man has an oppor-
tunity to put in his leaf while the r%ight-hand
man is turning his round. However, l need
not go further into details. All have to do
is to mention the matter and ask you to look
into it and see how far it is adaptable to your
circumstances. If the people in Mauritius
can establish a large fibre mandatory, l
do not see why the people in Barbados could
not. You have got the plant, the labour
and the land necessary for the establishment
of plantations. just now l spoke about the
flowers produced by this plant, and I spoke
also about the bulbels. Here is a cluster
of these bulbels. These plants, growing as