798 THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURISTt [June 1, 1903. 
myriad pyramids were carried great blocks and 
sculptured columns. To move tiiese mighty masses 
of limestone no powerful engines were at hand ; 
but the Batabs of Yucatan, like the rulers of ancient 
Egypt, had little use for mechanical devices. Human 
muscle and ropes of agave were all-sufficient. If 
ten ropes and a hundred slaves were not enough, a 
hundred ropes and a thousand slaves were not lacking. 
The ancient artists made use of the fiber in their 
work. They were not content to make the figure ; 
thev made the skeleton, and upon the bones and 
in the flesh — like the cords and muscles of the body — 
they placed coj ds and plaited bands of fiber. Close 
examination indicates that the fiber used was that 
of '.he vaxci plant. Over the imbeddecT muscles and 
flesh they placed a thin, hard wash of stucco to 
represent (he skin anfl sarface pigments. The writer 
has examineil macy dfizen fpecimens oi the broken 
figures of ntucco wherein are plainly shown the 
casts and the knots and braid — even the very 
character of the fiber. Ropes and cables for boats 
were also inade of agave fiber, cleaned by the ancient 
method and twisted by band into the cordage needed. 
When there happened to be scarcity of hemp for 
the cordage of the Royal Spanish Navy, search was 
made for a new material to eke out the supply 
from Manila, and the fiber used by the Campeche 
people came up for discussion. A royal commission 
was ordered to investigate, and its report, made 
in 1783, gave unstin ed praise to the Hew fiber. 
This fixes approximately the time of the first ex- 
portation of siEal hemp. For half a century after- 
ward its exisience feems to have been forgotten by 
the outside world. This fact was probably due to 
several causes, the principal of which was that the 
buccaneers made the path of Spanish commerce 
often seem the shortest road to ruin and death. 
Meanwhile the people of Yucatan grew poorer and 
poorer. Men looked around to see what could be 
turned into the money needed for the necessities 
of life. 
Attention wfs turned toward the fiber concealed 
in the leaf of the henequen, and in 1839 a kind of 
association was formed to make the experiment of 
producing the coarser fiber " sacci '' on a commercial 
basis. It was known that the spiny-edged agave 
called sacci produced a fiber coarser than that of 
the yaxci, but much more abundant, and consequently 
more profitable to cultivate, as the fiber then sold 
by weight and not by quantity. The fiber was 
cleaned by native instruments, and, peeked in loose 
bales of about 200 pounds each, was sent to New 
York. It found a market, but the price was such 
that there was but scant gain for the seller. The 
methods of cleaning tho fiber were so slow that 
■ even with the small wages of the day the cost per 
pound to the planter was discouraging. The State 
government, recognizing the great need of a suitable 
machine to clean the fiber, offered a gratuity of 
SIO.COO Mexican to the person inventing an ap- 
paratus capable of producing a stated output per 
hour. This finally resulted in the " raspador," the 
device of a Franciscan friar, which was used for 
many years. To-day half a dozen machines are in 
the market, some of them marvels of design and 
potency. 
At this point a brief resume of the fiber-cleaning 
machines in use may be interesting. Taking them 
in order of precedence by priority of invention, the 
list must unquestionably be headed by the pacche 
and the tonkas. This is simply a triangular, sharp- 
edged piece of wood, with rounded ends as handles. 
The cholu) is the material from which it is generally 
made, as it has a special quality of preserving its 
<! 'ge under constant use. A flat face of a chaoah " 
wood log is made with a hold and a peg in the 
upper portion. The leaf is taken, one end firmly 
fixed into tlie flat surface by jamming it into the 
hole and pushing the plug in after it ; then the scraper 
ia pushed away from the worker, held somewhat 
diagonally from the flat surface, and. the pulp ia 
gradually scraped away, leaving the trees of fiber 
hanging from the uncleaned half of the leaf,< The 
leaf is then reversed, the clean fiber is fixed" into 
the whole and the uncleaned portion presented ready 
for the action of the clearer. The second prehistoric 
implement, called the "tonkas," is a flattened 
piece of hard wood about 18 inches long by 5 
inches wide. At its upper end it is about an inch 
thick, and it dwindles until at the end it becomes 
a thin, sharp edge, curving inward, so as to grip 
and scrape the pulp from the fiber. The bedboard 
of the tonkas has a curve to correspond with the 
curve in the edge of the implement. The leaf is 
placed between the bedpiece and the tonkas, end while 
the tonkas is held fiimiy in one hand the other draws 
the leaf sharply towaro ihebody, this movement being 
repeated until one.ba;f of the leaf, is clean. The same 
operation lakes place on. the second half of the leaf 
until the clean trees of fiber hangs soft and pliant 
in the grasp of the operator. The pacche is the 
implement most in use today among the natives of 
the interior of Yucatan. Women use it to clean 
fiber, but the tonkas is used only by the strongest. 
An able-bodied person can produce with the use 
of this implement from 6 to 9 pounds of fiber daily. 
It is \inquestionably true that the fiber produced 
by these ancient implements possesses qualities not 
to be ol^Lained by the machine-cleaned product. In 
the hammock-making districts of Yucatan the 
yaxci is cleaned by these processes, and the makers 
of the finest hammocks (those worth their weight 
in silver) will not use a fiber produced by any 
other method. 
The next step in the evolution of the fiber-cleaning 
machine is the Soils machine, or raspador, which, 
in principle, is a wheel upon which are placed the 
edges of many pacche. The angle of application ia 
exactly the same. The raix>ador marked a new era 
for the commeice of Yucatan. With the aid of this 
machine two men could clean in one day more 
than forty could with the tonkas and pacche. Its 
use became extended, and henequen farms began 
to multiply and become prosperous. The merits of 
the varioiw machines I shall not discuss. The 
Stephens machines are at work; the Prieto is 
believed by many to be the most efficient all-round 
machine ; the Villamor follows it a close second, 
while the Torroella, the Lopez and the Lanaux 
each has its partisans and seems to do good work. 
These machines are the only ones in evidence 
to-day in Yucatan. Inasmuch as the inventors of 
the machines above mentioned have made improve- 
ments in their apparatus, I Lave prepared the 
following table from data given me by the inventors 
of their authorised agents: 
Hemp-cleaning machines in actual use n2>on the plan- 
to.tion of Yucatan. 
Leaves Men Actual 
cleaned in need- horse- 
Machine. 10 hours, ed. 
,— Number — v 
Lanaux 
reformed . 
..150,000 
4 
Prieto 
reformed 
.150,000 
4 
Torroella 
reformed . 
..150,000 • 
4 
Villamor 
reformed . 
..100,000 
7 
Stephens. 
..150,COO 
3 
Solis 
. 9, COO 
3 
power. Cost of Machine. 
Mexican.* U, 8, 
25 $7,000 $3,003 
16 8,600 3,689 
16 7,0C0 3,003 
16 5,0(J0 2,145 
70 No more being made. 
9 2,(00 858 
* The average value of the Me xican peso in 1902, 
according to the United State s Mint, was 42-9 cents. 
The most important implement of all is perhaps 
the corba, or machete, with a hooked end. It 
weighs about li pounds, and its size and shape can 
be seen by the annexed cut. With the oorba the 
native dexterously cuts the thick leaf, leaving the 
