BINDER-TWINE FIBER IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 11 



vide necessary grades for machine-cleaned maguey and sisal, and 

 plans were prepared for a Government sisal plantation. 



During the season of 1919-20 all of the maguey-producing Provinces 

 were visited for the purpose of ascertaining the degree of progress 

 that had been made and the changes or improvements that should 

 now be made. Conferences were held with the local Government 

 officials and the planters for a discussion of the fiber situation. All 

 of the fiber-cleaning machines that have been installed were inspected 

 and necessary arrangements were made for remedying any defects 

 in the operation of these machines. Arrangements were completed 

 for the transfer of the Government fiber-cleaning machine now lo- 

 cated at San Fernando, Cebu; to the island of Siquijor, where the 

 need for a demonstration of the machine is particularly urgent. 

 Numerous tests were made with the fiber-cleaning machines that are 

 now in operation to ascertain the capacity of these machines when 

 operated under normal Philippine field conditions and to determine 

 the relative results obtained with sisal and maguey fibers. Sisal 

 bulbils were received from the Hawaiian Islands, and 250,000 dis- 

 tributed in the Provinces. Diseased sisal plants were located in the 

 Province of Cebu, and arrangements were made for the destruction 

 of these plants. A demonstration sisal nursery was planted at the 

 Singalong Experiment Station in Manila. Plants were furnished 

 and arrangements made for the establishment of a demonstration 

 sisal nursery and field plantings at the College of Agriculture at Los 

 Banos and for a course of instruction to be given at the College of 

 Agriculture covering the more essential features of the sisal indus- 

 try. A special effort was made to disseminate as widely as possible 

 accurate information regarding the possibilities for the future devel- 

 opment of the binder-twine fiber industry in the Philippine Islands, 

 with a view to stimulating its continued growth. 



RESULTS OF THE COOPERATIVE WORK. 



THE MACHINE SITUATION. 



It was considered when the cooperative work was started in 1917 

 that the one thing most urgently needed in order to establish the 

 production of binder-twine fiber in the Philippine Islands on a per- 

 manently stable and profitable basis was the introduction of machine 

 cleaning. The cleaning of maguey and sisal by retting the leaves in 

 salt water is a slow, tedious, and wasteful process which requires 

 much cheap labor and produces in the end a fiber of inferior quality. 

 The retting system encourages, furthermore, the continued use of 

 unsatisfactory methods on the plantations, as the small and immature 

 leaves are more easily retted than the large mature leaves. With 

 salt-water retting the only available means of cleaning maguey, the 



