10 BULLETIN 930, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



ippine Islands to such an extent as to prevent a monopoly of this product by 

 any one country and to the advantage of the Philippine Islands by building up 

 an important industry in the poorest and most thickly populated Provinces. 



OUTLINE OF THE COOPERATIVE WORK. 



Under the terms of this cooperative agreement the Philippine 

 Bureau of Agriculture has purchased and operated for demonstra- 

 tion purposes one Prieto No. 51 fiber-cleaning machine and one Prieto 

 Xo. 251 fiber-cleaning machine, and has installed and operated one 

 Prieto Xo. 251 fiber-cleaning machine purchased by the United States 

 Department of Agriculture; has distributed sisal bulbils purchased 

 by the United States Department of Agriculture in the Hawaiian 

 Islands and sisal and maguey bulbils and suckers grown at La Car- 

 lota Experiment Station ; has detailed one or more employees on ex- 

 tension work in the Provinces; and has conducted educational and 

 publicity work. 



The United States Department of Agriculture furnished one Prieto 

 Xo. 251 fiber-cleaning machine and 500,000 sisal bulbils purchased in 

 the Hawaiian Islands, and detailed one specialist on this work in the 

 Philippine Islands from August, 1917, to June, 1918, and from De- 

 cember, 1919, to April, 1920. 



When the cooperative Government work was first organized, a com- 

 mittee representing the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 the Philippine Government, and the commercial fiber interests in the 

 Philippine Islands was appointed by the Governor General of the 

 Philippine Islands to investigate the maguey industry and to make 

 recommendations as to the means that should be employed to en- 

 courage the increased production of binder-twine fiber in the Philip- 

 pine Islands. Subsequent Government work has been pased on the 

 recommendations of this committee. 



During the season of 1917-18 an educational campaign was carried 

 on throughout the Philippine Islands for the purpose of disseminat- 

 ing information regarding the binder-twine fiber situation and the 

 possibilities for increasing the production of maguey and sisal fibers 

 in the Philippines. Field agents of the Philippine Bureau of xlgri- 

 culture were detailed in the Provinces where maguey is grown to 

 carry on extension work in the interests of the industry. Two fiber- 

 cleaning machines were received in Manila during the latter part of 

 1917. These machines were first installed and tested in Manila and 

 subsequently were installed and operated for demonstration purposes 

 elsewhere — one in the Province of Cebu and the other in the Province 

 of Ilocos Sur. Sisal bulbils to the number of 250,000 were imported 

 from the Hawaiian Islands and distributed to the agricultural schools 

 and to the maguey planters. The Government regulations providing 

 for the classification and grading of fibers were so amended as to pro- 



