30 



The Plant World. 



leaves are united in the center in a long, conical bud. Thes? 

 leaves furnish a finer though shorter fiber, often too soft and 

 weak, however, to be of much use. So these leaves are often 

 rejected. Those most used are of intermediate position and 

 age. We frequently see it stated that only the central leaves 

 or cogollo are used. This I did not observe to be the case. A 

 considerable part of the cogollo is rejected as being too soft, in 

 those places where I have had opportunity to observe the work, 

 though it is not unlikely that in some places only the youngest 

 of the fairly mature leaves are selected. 



The manner in which the fibre is extracted varies in the 

 details of the process, depending on the texture of the leaf and 

 the convenience of the operator. The operation is simplest in 

 the case of lechuguilla. For this work the laborer is armed 

 with a heavy knife drawn out at the point into a cylindrical 

 blunt part several inches in length. This knife has no cutting 

 edge but the thick dull blade is used as a scraper. The whole 

 instrument measures fifteen inches or more in length. The 

 point of the tool is thrust into the stem of the plant close to the 

 ground and just below the rosette of leaves and with a 

 quick wrench the stem is parted. A number of plants are then 

 carried to the shade of some bush or tree where the leaves are 

 stripped off and piled close at hand. A block of wood with a 

 smooth surface, four or five inches wide by a foot long, is firmly 

 fixed in position on the ground, and is used as a surface upon 

 which to scrape the leaves. The operator seats himself upon 

 the ground opposite one end of the block, seizes a leaf by its 

 base, places it upon the bbck and parallel with it, with the 

 other hand he presses the leaf hard against the block under the 

 blunt edge of the heavy knife and then draws the leaf through. 

 This operation is repeated a time or two and in less than ten 

 seconds the fiber of a leaf is stripped of its surrounding pulp. 

 A turn of the stripped fiber is then taken about a short stick 

 in order the better to hold it, and the basal part of the leaf is 

 cleaned in the same way, or sometimes the basal portion is 

 simply cut off at a stroke by drawing the lower part across the 

 blade of a sharp knife set upright and rigid close at hand. In 

 the operation of stripping the fiber a strong pressure is needed 

 upon the leaf and to this end a leverage is often obtained by 

 holding down the point of the knife with the foot, the extended 



