Fibres 



321 



The finest grades of Manila hemp are of a light buff colour, lustrous, very strong, the fine 

 fibres occurring in strands about six to twelve feet in length ; inferior qualities are coarser and 

 duller in colour, and are lacking in strength. The fibre is regarded in the trade as unrivalled for 

 rope -making, especially for cables, hawsers, and other marine cordage. 



Sisal Hemp 



There are two varieties of Sisal hemp met with in commerce, viz.. the sisal of Yucatan 

 (Agave rigida, var. elongata) and the sisal of the Bahamas and Florida (A. rigida, var. sisalana). 

 The latter, which is known as " henequen," is by far the most important, and is the subject 

 of valuable industries in the Bahamas, Mexico, Turk's Island, Cuba, and Hawaii. Of late years 

 the cultivation of the plant has been experimented with in India, especially in the Bombay 

 and Madras Presidencies, and quite recently the trial plantations in German East Africa and 

 British East Africa have produced sisal of the finest quality. 



The plant requires for its most satisfactory development a soil composed chiefly of lime- 

 stone, but it does well on most 

 stony, dry soils. The plantations 

 are laid out from suckers as in 

 the case of Manila hemp, or from 

 the bulbils which appear on the 

 flower-stalks in the positions of 

 the withered flowers, much in 

 the same way as "sets" occur 

 on onion plants. The plants 

 are set in holes during the rainy 

 season, and practically the only 

 attention given to the fields is 

 the clearing away of weeds about 

 once or twice a year. In this 

 case it is the long sword-shaped 

 leaves of the plant, armed with 

 prickles along the margins, which 

 yield the fibre, and the first crop 

 of the outer leaves is cut at the 

 end of the third or fourth year, 

 according to whether the plants were grown from suckers or are " mast plants," i.e., grown 

 from the bulbils occurring on the flowering " mast " or " pole." In Yucatan an average of 

 about fifteen leaves is obtained annually for a period of about twenty-five years, and in the 

 Bahamas the same number is obtained for from six to twelve years. At the end of these 

 periods the plants send up the flowering stem, and when once the flowering is over the 

 plants die. 



The machines used to separate the fibre from the leaves are generally known by their 

 Mexican name of " Raspador," which sufficiently indicates their essential action. The leaves 

 are fed into the machine which effectively scrapes out the pulp and at the same time washes 

 the fibre in water which is kept running in a steady stream to remove all debris. The fibre 

 is then hung in the sun to dry and bleach, a process which occupies about two or three days. 



Sisal is a straight, smooth, and clean fibre of a yellowish-white colour, measuring from 

 two-and-a-half to four feet in length. Next to Manila hemp it is the most valuable of the hard 

 cordage fibres. 



The genus Agave possesses several species yielding valuable fibres, and next in importance 

 to the sisal plant is the American Aloe or Century Plant, Agave americana. This species, which 

 receives its name of Century Plant from the fact that it flowers only at long intervals and 



Photo by W. G. Freeman, Esq. 



COCO-NUT YUCCA 



