166 
Plants of the ere above-mentioned, received through the India ag 
are now growing in the Kew collections. Manila aloe fibre (to be dis- 
tinguished from the well- ence pens hemp Leite from Musa 
textilis) is also apparently prepared fr es ivipara. This is 
quoted (January 15th, 1892) at 14s. to 16-4 per Penta desi of leaves 
of the plant Prepa g this fibre were lately stb from Mr. Alexander 
Gollan, r er Majesty’s Consul at Manila, and the above deen 
was confirmed. Fibre from Agave americana is pepared for local u 
both in India and elsewhere in the East Beart a he probable that 
-— ee exists only here and there a ens, and we are 
not a of the occurrence of the cnavibed: phy cil Agave dick. 
var. mane anywhere in the east. neo of this have lately 
distributed in small quantities from Kew to the oe Gardetit 
at Calcutta, a ome abt Ceylon, and Man uritiu 
Recently about 1,000 plants were "fbr warded from Kos to the Botanical 
Gardens ad amti and the Government of India has since taken — 
r nang in a larger quantity far experimental trial in different parts of 
FIs 
At the request of the Governor, Sir John Thurston, who is keenly 
interested in the development of n w industries in this remote British 
spite of the long time necessarily occupied in transit by way o f Sydney, 
the plants have arrived in good order, and the reports received of their 
growth is very jaiote 
FIBRE MACHINES. 
Until very recently the only machine in use in Yucatan was a clumsy 
affair stated to be a native invention, called a “ mE eR ” Rude as this 
piece of mechanism is, it is said that a native will clean 20 leaves a 
minute with it, though with a SeSi per-centage of waste of fibre. 
Whilst raspador is said to have been supersed on some e plantations, 
it is saap or less generally used at the present time for extracting the 
immense quantities of Sisal Hemp exported. The average work of one 
machine a claimed to be 7,000 leaves per day with two feeders or 
operative 
