FIBRES 567 



would regard as the most suitable, and it is for them that 

 the figures stated previously for the time of harvest and 

 period of life are normal. In richer soils the first harvest- 

 ing of the leaves must be begun far earlier this has 

 proved to be particularly the case in the plantations of 

 Usambara. In that district the suckers produce fully 

 developed mature leaves as early as a year and a half 

 after planting out. On such soils, however, the plant 

 may have completed its term of existence within three 

 years. On poor soils, on the other hand, the agavse do 

 not produce mature leaves until four or five years after 

 having been transplanted as suckers; but there the life- 

 time of the plants is, as a rule, correspondingly longer. 

 As regards the results of cultivation on these different 

 kinds of soil, the medium and poor soils on the whole 

 yield a better quality and a greater amount of fibre. 

 But the first-mentioned soils contain so much nutritive 

 material that at the end of the first period of cultivation 

 a new period of plantation can begin immediately without 

 any intermediate process of manuring being required. 

 After the second term of planting' this soil has become 

 so exhausted as to approximate the medium soil which 

 we consider as the best suitable. 



The general rule for a methodically worked plantation 

 must always be that each plant yields about 200 fibre- 

 producing leaves, and that 3^ to 4 per cent, of the entire 

 leaves consists of the fibre material. It is a matter of 

 comparative indifference whether this result is attained 

 sooner or later, according to the quality of the soil. In 

 plantations which are worked in a really methodical 

 manner, a far-sighted manager is always able to put a 

 definite quantity of fibre on the market from any kind 

 of soil. 



In " rational cultivation " the root suckers, of which 

 often a large number grow around each individual plant, 

 are regularly removed, -whilst in "wild culture" the 

 suckers are allowed to develop freely. An advantage of 

 the latter method of culture is that a sufficient amount 

 of leaves is always available without the labour and 

 expense required for fresh planting. In certain planta- 

 tions of German East Africa this method of cultivation 

 has occasionally proved fairly satisfactory, particularly 



