OTHER FARM CROPS 583 



in soil that becomes dry. The plants are propagated chiefly by suck- 

 ers, which spring from the roots of mature plants. These are set 

 out in rows 5 to 8 feet apart in each direction. Cultivation consists - 

 chiefly in cutting down weeds which would otherwise grow up and 

 choke out the abaca. About three years are required for the plants 

 to reach maturity when propagated from cuttings, or about five 

 years when grown from seeds. They attain a height of 8 to 20 feet, 

 the trunk being composed chiefly of overlapping leaf sheaths. When 

 the flower bud appears the entire plant is cut off close to the ground. 

 The leaf sheaths, 5 to 12 feet in length, are stripped off, separated 

 tangentially into layers a quarter of an inch or less in thickness, and 

 these in turn split into strips 1 to 2 inches in width. While yet 

 fresh and green these strips are drawn by hand under a knife held 

 by a spring against a piece of wood. This scrapes away the pulp, 

 leaving the fiber clean and white. After drying in the sun the fiber 

 is tied in bunches and taken to the principal towns or to Manila to 

 be baled for export. 



The average yield of fiber is about 650 pounds per acre. 



The best grade of manila fiber is of a light buff color, lustrous, 

 and very strong, in fine, even strands 6 to 12 feet in length. Poorer 

 grades are coarser and duller in color, some of them yellow or even 

 dark brown, and lacking in strength. The better grades are re- 

 garded as the only satisfactory material known in commerce for 

 making hawsers, ships' cables, and other marine cordage which may 

 be exposed to salt water, or for well-drilling cables, hoisting ropes, 

 and transmission ropes to be used where great strength and flexibility 

 are required. The best grade of binder twine is made from manila 

 fiber, since owing to its greater strength it can be made up at 650 

 feet to the pound as compared with sisal at 500 feet. 



SISAL. 



The sisal plant (Agave rigida) usually known as henequen in 

 Spanish-sneaking countries, is native in Yucatan. It has been in- 

 troduced in many other tropical countries, but its cultivation for 

 fiber on a commercial scale is confined to Yucatan, the Bahamas, 

 Turks Island, Cuba, and Hawaii. The sisal plant requires for its 

 best development a soil composed chiefly of limestone and a warm 

 and comparatively dry climate. Clear, dry weather, with bright 

 sunshine, is required to dry and bleach the fiber, while in rich, moist 

 soil or in a moist climate the leaves develop too large an amount of 

 pulp in proportion to the fiber. 



The sisal plant is propagated by suckers springing from the 

 roots of old plants, or from bulbils. Bulbils, called "mast plants," 

 are produced in great numbers on the flower stalks in place of seed 

 pods, like onion sets. The plants are set out during the rainy sea- 

 son, in rows 4 to 8 feet apart, in holes dug in partly disintegrated 

 coral or lime rock with crowbars, pickaxes, and sometimes with the 

 aid of dynamite. The ground where sisal is grown is usually too 

 rocky to permit any stirring of the soil. About the only care given 

 is to cut the brush and weeds once or twice each year. The weeds 

 and brush, largely leguminous plants, by decaying on the ground 



