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



Although the large machines have not yet been tested in the Philippines, the 

 indications are that in locations where a large supply of leaves is obtainable 

 these will prove to be most' satisfactory. 



Having observed the Government demonstrations that have been 

 made with machines, most of the Philippine planters now prefer the 

 largest machines that can be obtained. This is shown by the fact 

 that during the last year orders have been placed for 11 of the large 

 machines and 1 of medium size. None of the small machines have ' 

 been purchased during this period. 



A number of tests have been made with the Government machines 

 for the purpose of determining their capacity, the yield of fiber 

 obtained from a given number of leaves, the relative yields of 

 maguey and sisal, the relative quality of fiber obtained from maguey 

 and sisal, and the relative percentage of fiber obtained by machine 

 cleaning and retting. As these machines were adjusted for cleaning 

 maguey rather than sisal, as the men who operated the machines were 

 not accustomed to handling the large sisal leaves, and as sisal leaves 

 of satisfactory quality were not obtainable, the results of these tests 

 so far as sisal is concerned can not be considered as conclusive. 



It was found that the medium-sized machine, the cleaning capacity 

 of which was supposed to be 5,000 leaves per hour, will, under aver- 

 age conditions, clean about 7,000 of the small maguey leaves per 

 hour. In one test made with 1,000 leaves, cleaning was done at the 

 rate of 10,909 leaves per hour. The best result obtained with sisal 

 was 4,615 leaves per hour, 



The yield of fiber obtained from the average-sized maguey leaves 

 was about 17 pounds per 1,000 leaves, or approximately one-third of 

 that ordinarily obtained from henequen and sisal. The largest yield 

 from maguey in any of the tests was 26 pounds of fiber per 1,000 

 leaves. While these leaves were considerably larger than the aver- 

 age of the maguey leaves that are now being cleaned, they were much 

 smaller than the maguey leaves that can be produced on plants which 

 are properly planted and cared for. The largest yield of sisal ob- 

 tained in these tests was 47.74 pounds of fiber per 1,000 leaves, while 

 other tests gave considerably smaller yields. As it was imprac- 

 ticable to obtain sisal leaves of satisfactory size and quality, these 

 tests should not be considered as an indication that Philippine sisal 

 produces less fiber than the sisal of other countries. 



With the quality of maguey leaves now obtainable and with favor- 

 able operating conditions, the medium-sized machine should clean 

 approximately 1,500 pounds of maguey fiber in an 8-hour day. In 

 all the tests the weight of sisal fiber cleaned in a given period of 

 time was less than that of maguey fiber cleaned in the same period. 



