BINDER-TWINE FIBER IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 17 



funds made it impossible to establish them. It was believed that it 

 would be advisable to have a number of small demonstration plant- 

 ings in connection with the school gardens at various places in the 

 maguey-producing Provinces. The results obtained with the school- 

 garden nurseries were not satisfactory, and future distributions will 

 be made direct to the planters. 



In March, 1920, a second shipment of 250,000 sisal bulbils was re- 

 ceived in Manila. As fiber-cleaning machines are now being installed 

 at different places both in the Ilocos Provinces and in Cebu, and as the 

 machines do more satisfactory work with sisal than with maguey, it 

 was considered advisable to limit the distribution of these plants to 

 a small number of responsible planters whose plantations are located 

 near the places where machines are to be installed. Some of these 

 plants were used for demonstration nurseries at the Singalong 

 Experiment Station in Manila and at the College of Agriculture in 

 Los Banos. 



While the establishment of sisal in the Philippines has been slow, 

 the distribution of Hawaiian plants has been by no means without 

 results of value. From the Government nurseries at La Carlota, in 

 the Province of Occidental Negros, large numbers of sisal bulbils and 

 suckers have been distributed. A sisal industry has been established 

 on the island of Siquijor, which is now the principal industry of that 

 island, and it is probable that the Siquijor industry alone would 

 justify all expenditures that have been made by the Government in 

 this work. 



The introduction of cleaning machines in the Philippines will prob- 

 ably result in a decided change in the attitude of the planters toward 

 sisal, and in the localities where machines are installed it should be 

 possible to get sisal nurseries established. Wherever a machine has 

 been operated the planters have had an opportunity to see that sisal 

 is cleaned more easily and produces a better quality of fiber than 

 maguey. 



The principal source of supply of sisal plants in the Philippine 

 Islands is the island of Siquijor. While the Siquijor plantings are 

 quite widely scattered and accurate data showing the total area are 

 not available, there are several hundred acres of sisal on that island. 

 On Cebu there is a sisal plantation in the municipality of Borbon, in 

 the northern part of the island. In 1916 the Philippine Bureau of 

 Agriculture obtained 100,000 sisal bulbils from this plantation, and 

 both suckers and bulbils are available at Borbon at the present time. 

 There are a number of smaller plantings in different parts of Cebu, 

 and throughout all of the maguey-producing Provinces there are small 

 patches and scattering plants of sisal. 



Unless the demand for sisal plants in the Philippine Islands becomes 

 much greater than now appears probable, the plantations of Siquijor, 



